Let me begin by making two important points. First, any 2012 match up at this point is pretty much meaningless. Two years in politics might as well be two millennia. Anything can happen between now and November 2012. Tom Jensen from Public Policy Polling states this case perfectly:
Obviously 2012 is a long ways off and the immediate relevance of these numbers is limited. It's possible we'll look back on polls like this 28 months from now after Obama's been reelected and laugh. But it's also possible that we'll look back on the summer of 2010 after he's been defeated and see it as the time when his prospects for reelection really took a turn for the worse. For now there's really no way to tell.
The second point that needs to be made is that Public Policy Polling are not a conservative leaning pollsters, quite the opposite. Ed Morrissey from Hot Air explains the leanings behind this poll.
In case one wonders whether PPP’s sample is to blame, the partisan split favors Democrats by five points, 39/34. That’s probably overstating the actual size of the gap and the percentage of Democrats in the general population, which means that the independents got short shrift as well. Also note that this poll surveyedregistered voters, not likely voters — a sampling technique that would tend to favor Democrats and Obama a little more.
Keep Morrissey’s words in mind as you read through the results below.
With his approval numbers hitting new lows it’s no surprise that Barack Obama’s numbers in our monthly look ahead to the 2012 Presidential race are their worst ever this month. He trails Mitt Romney 46-43, Mike Huckabee 47-45, Newt Gingrich 46-45, and is even tied with Sarah Palin at 46. The only person tested he leads is Jan Brewer, who doesn’t have particularly high name recognition on the national level at this point.
It’s not that any of the Republican candidates are particularly well liked. Only Huckabee has positive favorability numbers at 37/28. Romney’s at 32/33, Gingrich at 32/42, Palin at 37/52, and Brewer at 17/20. But with a majority of Americans now disapproving of Obama it’s no surprise that a large chunk of them would replace him as President if they had that choice today.
There are two things driving these strong poll numbers for the Republican candidates. The first is a lead with independents in every match up. Romney leads 48-35 with them, Gingrich is up 50-39, Huckabee has a 46-40 advantage, Palin’s up 47-42, and even Brewer has a 38-37 edge.
What is most interesting here is the Obama/ Palin tie. This is a left leaning poll and Obama cannot best the left’s worst nightmare Sarah Palin. A few of you regular readers worry that Palin is damaged goods and could never win in 2012. Well, this poll makes clear that Obama is also damaged goods and Palin has a fair chance of winning. The key to the Obama/ Palin match up is who can repair their image the fastest. Looking at the two over the last 18 months, I would have to give Palin the nod. She went from being trapped under an avalanche of frivolous lawsuits as governor to a national champion for conservative views. Obama on the other hand has failed miserably to live up to all the election hype.
As I stated in the opening of this post, two years is a lifetime in politics anything can happen.
Via: Memeorandum
Via: Hot Air