Michigan public opinion

ARG released a new poll of Michigan voters showing Clinton at 38%, Obama at 25%, and Edwards at 14%, with 14% undecided and the rest split among the second tier.

I'm still in the thick of my employment search, so I don't have too much time to go over this in detail.

I'll update the Michigan Poll Data section with this and the recent Strategic Vision poll soon.

I'm studying for mad crazy finals right now, but I wanted to quickly pass this along.

A new Strategic Vision poll of Michigan was released today, surveying the Presidential Primary field and some approval ratings. This is the first one we've had in almost a month.

Remember, this is a Republican firm. Still, some key findings:

1. Do you approve or disapprove of President Bush's overall job performance?
Approve 25%
Disapprove 66%
Undecided 9%

5. Do you favor an immediate withdrawal of the United States military forces from Iraq, within the six months?
Yes 49%
No 41%
Undecided 10%

7. Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Jennifer Granholm's job performance?
Approve 44%
Disapprove 41%
Undecided 15%

8. Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Carl Levin's job performance?
Approve 50%
Disapprove 33%
Undecided 17%

9. Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Debbie Stabenow's job performance?
Approve 45%
Disapprove 34%
Undecided 21%

10. For the 2008 Republican Presidential Nomination whom would you support? (Republicans Only)
Rudy Giuliani 26%
John McCain 22%
Mitt Romney 10%
Fred Thompson 9%
Newt Gingrich 4%
Sam Brownback 3%
Tom Tancredo 2%
Tommy Thompson 1%
Mike Huckabee 1%
Chuck Hagel 1%
Ron Paul 1%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Jim Gilmore 1%
Undecided 18%

12. For the 2008 Democratic Presidential Nomination whom would you support? (Democrats Only)
Hillary Clinton 29%
Barack Obama 24%
John Edwards 22%
Joseph Biden 3%
Bill Richardson 3%
Christopher Dodd 1%
Dennis Kucinich 1%
Undecided 17%

Sample size, survey dates, etc.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1200 likely voters in Michigan, aged 18+, and conducted April 13-15, 2007. The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

I wish I could comment on all of this, but I simply don't have the time. I might do a follow-up analysis post in a few days.

I'll also update the Michigan poll data section when I get a chance.

Remember, each statewide Presidential Primary poll of Michigan is archived in the Michigan Poll Data section.

Results (via WTOL):

Democrats:
Clinton - 45%
Obama - 29%
Edwards - 16%
Richardson - 4%
Biden - 4%
Undecided - 2%

Republicans:
McCain - 30%
Giuliani - 26%
Romney - 21%
Gingrich - 16%
Thompson - 2%
Brownback - 1%
Undecided - 4%

Methodology (via WOOD TV):

The EPIC-MRA polls of 600 voters was taken March 12-18, 2007 and focused on national issues plus 2008 presidential candidates.

According to WTOL, the margin of error was 5 percent.

had a margin of sampling error of around plus or minus five percentage points.

UPDATE:  Michigan poll data section has been updated again with all of the presidential primary polling and approval ratings since November 2006.

According to Strategic Vision:

Democratic Results:

Hillary Clinton 33%
Barack Obama 28%
John Edwards 14%
Joseph Biden 4%
Bill Richardson 2%
Wesley Clark 2%
Christopher Dodd 1%
Dennis Kucinich 1%
Undecided 15%

Republican Results:

Rudy Giuliani 28%
John McCain 24%
Mitt Romney 14%
Newt Gingrich 8%
Sam Brownback 4%
Tom Tancredo 3%
Tommy Thompson 2%
Mike Huckabee 1%
Chuck Hagel 1%
Duncan Hunter 1%
Jim Gilmore 1%
Undecided 13%

Approval Ratings:

We also have new approval ratings for Senator Levin, Senator Stabenow, and Governor Granholm:

10. Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Jennifer Granholm's job performance?

Approve 45%
Disapprove 39%
Undecided 16%

11. Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Carl Levin's job performance?
Approve 48%
Disapprove 34%
Undecided 18%

12. Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Debbie Stabenow's job performance?
Approve 44%
Disapprove 37%
Undecided 19%

Methodology:

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1200 likely voters in Michigan, aged 18+, and conducted March 9-11, 2007. The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

All will be added to the Michigan Poll Data section shortly.

According to the American Research Group, Clinton and McCain lead in Michigan:

I will add both the ARG poll and the last one to the "Poll Data" page shortly.

See the Michigan poll data section for every statewide poll of Michigan voters on elections since November 2006.

It wasn't an IMP poll, it was a MIRS/Rossman Group/Denno-Noor Poll.

Democrats:

Hillary Clinton was the choice of 32 percent of those Democrats surveyed, finishing double digits higher than her nearest competitor, former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards (21 percent), and 12 points higher than Illinois U.S. Senator Barack Obama (20 percent). The remaining Democrat candidates were all in single digits — former Vice President Al Gore at 6 percent, Delaware U.S. Senator Joseph Biden at 2 percent, Connecticut U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd at 1 percent and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson at 1 percent.

Republicans:

On the Republican side of the aisle, a three-way race is also shaping up, with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani enjoying an early eleven point lead over former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the son of former Michigan Governor George Romney (17 percent), and a twelve point lead over Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain (16 percent). Trailing further behind these candidates were former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at 10 percent, Vice President Dick Cheney at 6 percent, Kansas U.S. Senator Sam Brownback at 3 percent and Nebraska U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel at 2 percent. As with the Democrat primary voters, 17% of Republicans were undecided.

Methodology:

Methodology: This survey was part of the inaugural Rossman Group/MIRS/Denno-Noor Quarterly Survey of the Michigan electorate. 600 respondents were surveyed between February 21 and February 23, and the participation was stratified based on census data and past voter behavior. A screen was employed to include only those participants who said they intended on voting, either at the polls or by absentee ballot, in the November 2008 Election. The margin of error is plus/minus 4 percent.

I should also add that polling for undeclared candidates like Al Gore and Dick Cheney is absolutely moronic, and makes it impossible to compare to polls that don't include them as choices. We get few statewide (Michigan) polls as it is.

Also, did they survey likely primary voters? It looks like they surveyed likely November voters instead, which tells us nothing about what turnout would be like in a primary.

Recently released Gallup poll data shows that Michigan Democrats beat Michigan Republicans in partisan self-identification throughout 2006.

Although Michigan has been solidly Democratic since 2003, 2006 was especially good to Democrats in Michigan. 52% of Michigan residents identified themselves as leaning or solidly Democratic, whereas only 37% identified themselves as leaning or solidly Republican.

Partisan self-identification cannot predict overall election outcomes. However, Party ID is important because it is the single strongest predictor of individual vote choice. When people vote for candidates in the same party through multiple elections, they are more likely to stick with that party in the long term. If we can sustain this advantage for successive elections, we could have an enduring majority on our hands.

I created a new section for the purposes of tracking Michigan-related post-election polls and approval ratings.  Please give me a shout if I'm missing anything.

Also, the MI News section has been improved substantially.

Am I missing anything?  Give me a shout.

Michigan Democratic Presidential Primary Polls (2008)

Michigan Republican Presidential Primary Polls (2008)

Post-Election Approval Ratings (after November 7, 2006):

Senator Approval (Levin)

Senator Approval (Stabenow)

Governor Approval (Granholm)

Michigan Gubernatorial Election Polls (2006)

This is the data that I used to make the 2006 gubernatorial elections charts.  Unfortunately, I don't have the pollsters and other information saved.  Still, I figured that someone might be interested in these:

"Date" corresponds to month.  Final Outcome:  Granhom - 56.4%, DeVos - 44.2%

Just a heads up, since I know how everyone loooooves to talk about Presidential electoral politics:

According to the Detroit Free Press, Michigan Democrats overwhelmingly prefer Hillary Clinton.

Almost a year before the state's parties hold primaries or caucuses, Clinton is the clear choice of Michigan Democrats with a nearly 30-point lead over her nearest rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, a Detroit Free Press-Local 4 Michigan Poll conducted last week shows. The New York senator and former first lady got strong support crossing racial lines, income levels, geographical boundaries and age.

The Free Press website has full breakdowns of the head-to-head matchups and primary vote simulation.

At this point, I think that these results reflect on name recognition more than anything else.  If the pollsters didn't "push" people toward choosing a particular candidate, most people would be undecideds.  In other words, support for primary candidates is still "soft" at this point.  To candidates, the real value of polling this early is in defining the media narrative and fundraising.

The head-to-head polls were conducted by Selzer and Company.  They sampled 675 voters from Jan 28 to 31, and claim a margin of error of 3.8 percent.  In their simulation of a Democratic primary vote, they sampled 273 voters from Jan 28 to 31, and claim a margin of error of 5.9 percent.

Be sure to check out Laura's first thread on Presidential Primary Polling, too.

I'm happy with the way that the graphs of trends reflected popular sentiment, and plan on using them again the next election cycle. I think they did a pretty good job of showing how things were moving during any given period of time. They aren't always going to indicate what the election results might be like (due to factors like turnout, survey errors, etc.) but they are useful for stuff like discarding unreliable numbers and tracking shifts in opinion.

Speaking of bad numbers, were those Mitchell results garbage or what? Like we had mentioned before, the entire narrative about the gap "narrowing" near the end was absolutely false. The trends showed the gap widening, and that's what happened. This is why it is difficult to trust partisan pollsters -- they spin the results based on what they think will motivate the troops. We saw the MDP do this with the poll showing Amos Williams ahead, as well as pretty much everything that came out of Mitchell.

One of the things I saw emphasized on election day in the news were problems with electronic voting, especially when there is no paper trail involved. Hopefully, coverage of all of the problems and inconsistencies involving this kind of voting will lead to improvements in the electoral process. I'd like to see some other "process" improvements as well, such as more competitive house districts in Michigan, stronger robocall disclosure laws, better financial disclosure requirements (think DeVos disclosure problems), and campaign finance improvements. There were other voting problems in Michigan that need to be addressed as well. For example, precincts in Pontiac ran out of ballots for several hours in the night, which caused many people to not be able to vote.

Obviously, the SBT replacement is a major issue that needs to be dealt with. Hopefully, it will be easier to go through with that and other initiatives like Granholm's health care plan and jobs plan with the change in power in the House. DeVos would have dismantled those, so I'm glad that he wasn't re-elected.

I think the blogs and "netroots" played a huge impact on the outcome of these elections. At the state level, Michigan Liberal had a major impact on the narrative of several races, most notably MI-Gov. At the national level, Webb and Tester are "netroots" candidates who were backed by the blogs long before anyone else thought that they even had a chance. Now, they are credited as the reasons that Democrats won the Senate.

Poor Sharon Renier. At least she helped make that race competitive, and caused Republicans to divert valuable time and resources to that district instead of in other races.

We need to start thinking about our candidates for statewide races in 2008 and 2010. They've got Cox and Land, and we don't have anyone of comparable stature yet.

Now that we've taken back the national house, members of our Michigan Congressional Delegation have been attracting attention. Its a shame that Republicans have already started to slander John Conyers. Good to know that John Dingell is going to be one of the key players in the debate about net neutrality:

"Clearly, we're going to have to address the question of network neutrality," Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, told reporters on Wednesday. Dingell, who has served in the House for more than 50 of his 80 years, is set to be the next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which writes telecommunications laws.

Dingell didn't elaborate. But he's previously gone on the record as a staunch supporter of extensive regulations that would prohibit network operators from charging content providers extra for premium placement or faster delivery, dubbing it "private taxation of the Internet." (Network operators say they may need to do this to recoup their vast investments in new broadband infrastructure.)

The unfortunate reality of our political system is that political change occurs through our two political parties. Although Greens may be well intentioned, by taking money from Republicans to "spoil" competitive races, they work against many of the principles they support. That energy could be focused more productively on attempts to change the Democratic Party itself. This was kind of frustrating:

Also in the Senate races, the presence of Green Party candidates hurt Democrats Andy Levin of Bloomfield Township and Carl Williams of Saginaw, who lost by 776 and 520 votes, respectively, said Tom Lenard, Senate Democratic spokesman. Green candidates there drew quadruple those losing margins.

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This includes the most recent Strategic Vision poll, as well as the most recent Survey USA.

We're seeing a lot of instability. Also, the median date of when the most recent polls were conducted is Nov. 3rd, and the election is November 7th. Its tough to tell what is taking place between Nov. 3rd and the 7th.

Despite that, things are looking very good right now.

A new Strategic Vision poll was released showing Granholm up 52 to 42. Also, it has Stabenow up 50 to 44. Remember, Strategic Vision is a Republican firm.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1200 likely voters in Michigan, aged 18+, and conducted November 2-4, 2006. The margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

I promise, updated trends are coming shortly.