Poll: It Would Be A Fallin-Watts Horse Race

A new statewide poll to be released today shows that if former Congressman J. C. Watts joins Congresswoman Mary Fallin and Senator Randy Brogdon in the race for the Republican nomination for governor, Fallin and Watts would be in a horse race.

The poll, conducted by Wilson Research Strategies of 500 likely GOP primary voters from May 7th to May 9th, "indicates a very tight race for the Republican nomination for Governor," the analysis reports. "Former Congressman and Corporation Commissioner J.C. Watts leads Congresswoman Mary Fallin 39% to 36% if the Republican primary election for Governor were held today. Randy Brogdon receives five percent (5%) support."

Fallin, the poll shows, leads Watts in three of the state's five congressional districts, including the one Watts previously represented in Congress.

The poll shows Watts leading Fallin in "Congressional District 1 (52% for Watts to 19% for Fallin), CD 2 (41% to 17%) and in the Tulsa Media Market overall (50% to 17%). Fallin does lead in CD 4 (43% versus 34%) and CD 5 (53% to 29%). In CD 3, Fallin narrowly leads Watts 42% to 37%."

The poll was not taken for any of the candidates, a WRS spokesman said.

The WRS findings conflict with a previous poll by Fallin's pollster, The Tarrance Group of Washington. That poll found Fallin leading Watts 45.3 percent 25.9 percent. Brogdon, of Owasso, got 5 percent. The poll found Fallin leading Watts by about 18 percent in the 4th District and by more than 20 percent in Oklahoma City's 5th District.

The WRS poll analysis notes the previous poll by The Tarrance Group: "Early trends in a primary campaign like this one can also give us important information about the course of the race. In this case we can examine trend between our results and the results of a survey conducted by the Tarrance Group on behalf of the Fallin campaign which was released publicly on April 28. The Tarrance Group survey showed Fallin leading Watts 48% to 36% despite J.C. Watts having higher favorable ratings than Mary Fallin (79% favorable for Watts versus 77% for Fallin). This discrepancy between the ballot and the candidates’ relative favorable ratings was unusual. A 46% vote conversion rate in the Tarrance survey for J.C. Watts may indicate that many Republican primary voters had not yet begun to consider him as a gubernatorial candidate. His personal popularity was not translated into votes among an electorate who had not thought of him as a candidate before the
survey. On the other hand, Mary Fallin’s 62% vote conversion rate is more indicative
of being the only well-known candidate in a primary, reinforcing the idea that voters had not yet considered J.C. Watts a candidate. As Republican primary voters have become acquainted with the idea of J.C. Watts running for Governor, his support has grown to 39% and Fallin’s has declined to 36%. This fifteen point swing is consistent with J.C. Watts’ edge in favorable ratings and shows that this is now a two-candidate race in the minds of most voters."

One pro-Fallin analyst, given the district-by-district results of the WRS poll, said the two most important districts are the 4th and the 5th, where Fallin and Watts are about equal in name identification. He said that if the results in the 4th and 5th Districts are accurate, "JC needs to be given a reality check on his 'Republicans not happy with the candidates' quote because they may very well have been talking about him and not her."

A Watts supporter and veteran GOP official said the Tulsa area results "should trouble Mary and her troops. That's a scary number in the state's second-largest media market."

Other previous polls have found Fallin with a substantial lead over Watts, who has not yet announced if he'll get into the race. Sources told The McCarville Report Online on Monday that he will announce this week.

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Poll: If The Candidates For Governor Are...

Our totally unscientific online poll of candidates in the 2010 gubernatorial race continues as Congresswoman Mary Fallin leads in the early voting.

Our poll asks, "If the candidates for governor are Jari Askins, Randy Brogdon, Drew Edmondson and Mary Fallin, who wins?"

Thus far, Fallin leads with 58 percent. Brogdon, the second Republican in the poll, has 20 percent. Democrats Askins and Edmondson have 17 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

The poll is on the right side of this page; scroll down to find it and cast your vote.

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Poll: Oklahomans Not Impressed By Obama

The Tulsa World reports that Oklahomans remain unenamored with their new president based on a just-released poll.

Fewer than half those surveyed by SoonerPoll.com on April 23-26 said they approve of the way Obama is doing his job, and most were skeptical about his administration's plans to turn around the economy and reform government.

The survey of 318 likely voters has a 5.5 percentage point margin of error.

Only 47 percent said they approved of Obama's job performance, while 48 percent disapproved.

Thirty-six percent said they strongly disapproved.

The Oklahoma results contrast sharply with national polling, which shows about two-thirds of Americans approve of Obama's job performance.

"Oklahomans are very polarized," said SoonerPoll.com President Bill Shapard. "Two-thirds of Democrats said they approve of Obama. That's in line with national figures. Among Republicans, only 25 percent approve of him."

Read more at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=12&articleid=20090429_16_A1_OLHMIY212294.

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Fallin Poll: She Leads Watts, Brogdon

Supporters of Congresswoman Mary Fallin are touting the results of an in-house poll by The Tarrance Group that measures her strength against former Congressman J. C. Watts as speculation swirls that he may enter the Republican primary for governor.

Fallin and Senator Randy Brogdon of Owasso have announced they are running. Watts has said he's thinking about it and may make a decision in a few weeks.

The poll reports, "In a trial ballot with Mary Fallin, J.C. Watts, and Randy Brogdon, Fallin has 48% support, including 23% 'definite' support. Watts has 34% support, including 15% 'definite' support and Brogdon receives 4% support, including 2% 'definite' support. The remaining 13% of the Republican electorate is undecided."

The poll also reports that Fallin has a 77 percent favorable rating and Watts has a 79 percent favorable rating.

Fallin, the poll shows, "has majority support from key regions like the Oklahoma City DMA (64%) and from key GOP primary electorate demographic groups like seniors (53%), weekly church attendees (54%), and veterans (54%)...Fallin and Watts are well known and well liked by Republican primary voters. However, on a trial ballot, GOP primary voters prefer Mary Fallin to J.C. Watts by a double digit margin."

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Fallin Tops Brogdon, Watts In Online Poll

Congresswoman Mary Fallin has won an unscientific, online poll of announced and possible Republican contenders fror governor next year conducted by KTOK radio talk show host Mark Shannon on his popular website.

Final results show Fallin with 51.4 percent, Senator Randy Brogdon with 26.5 percent and former Congressman J. C. Watts with 20 percent.

Fallin and Brogdon have announced they are running. Watts has indicated he's "thinking" about the race.

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Rasmussen Reports: Obama Splits Nation

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Pollsters Have Egg On Their Faces

From Newsmax ~ The presidential election was a sharp setback both for the GOP and for the major national pollsters who saw their gloom-and-doom predictions of a double-digit drubbing blow up in their faces.

Only Pew, Rasmussen Got It Right

The pollsters will have some explaining to do in the election aftermath, after several predicted the McCain-Palin ticket would lose by almost twice the actual margin.

Sen. Barack Obama's victory over Sen. John McCain clearly is one of historic dimensions. His victory marked the first time since the 1976 election of Jimmy Carter that a Democratic candidate for president captured more than 50 percent of the vote. Obama garnered 62.5 million votes — 52 percent of the vote — compared with McCain's 55.5 million 46 percent, respectively.

Yet the predictions of Gallup and Reuters/C-Span that Obama had an 11 percent margin never materialized. The results were clearly beyond the polls' margin of error.

Other polls, including ABC/Washington Post and CBS, had showed Obama with a 9-point margin. Even the RealClearPolitics "poll of polls," an average of 15 national polls, showed Obama ahead by 7.5 points.

"One thing is clear at this point," Newsmax columnist Dick Morris reported just before 9 p.m. on Tuesday. "The polls were wrong!"

Obama, Morris predicted, "is not winning by the margins the polls predicted."

Some GOP pundits, pointing to polling errors that favored Democrats in 2000 and 2004, warned before the election that the Obama campaign was using inflated numbers to make the election’s outcome appear inevitable, dampening enthusiasm and support for McCain in the closing days of the campaign and reducing GOP voter turnout.

That the race was actually much closer than most of polls indicated explains the furious pace of campaigning by Obama and McCain right up to Election Day.

The polls that emerged as the most accurate: The Pew Research and Rasmussen polls that showed the race precisely at 52 to 46.

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Bouncing Polls: McCain Cuts Obama Lead

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain by 50 percent to 46 percent among likely voters in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, down from a 9-point edge a week earlier.

The new poll released on Tuesday was conducted Saturday through Monday, after the candidates met in their first debate on Friday.

Obama had led McCain by 52 percent to 43 percent in the poll's previous survey released last week.

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Poll: Obama Takes Clear Lead Over McCain

From The Washington Post ~ Turmoil in the financial industry and growing pessimism about the economy have altered the shape of the presidential race, giving Democratic nominee Barack Obama the first clear lead of the general-election campaign over Republican John McCain, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News national poll.

Just 9 percent of those surveyed rated the economy as good or excellent, the first time that number has been in single digits since the days just before the 1992 election. Just 14 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, equaling the record low on that question in polls dating back to 1973.

More voters trust Obama to deal with the economy, and he currently has a big edge as the candidate who is more in tune with the economic problems Americans now face. He also has a double-digit advantage on handling the current problems on Wall Street, and as a result, there has been a rise in his overall support.

The poll found that, among likely voters, Obama now leads McCain by 52 percent to 43 percent. Two weeks ago, in the days immediately following the Republican National Convention, the race was essentially even, with McCain at 49 percent and Obama at 47 percent.

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Rasmussen Polls Around The Country

From Rasmussen Reports:

Florida: McCain Still Ahead by Five

Ohio: McCain 50%, Obama 46%

In Michigan, Obama 51% McCain 44%

Pennsylvania: Obama Holds Three-Point Advantage Over McCain

McCain Ahead Again in Virginia, 50% to 48%

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McCain Leads (Barely) In Three Key States

From AOLNews.com ~ John McCain holds a razor-thin one-point lead in Florida, ahead of Barack Obama's 47-46 percent, according to CNN's poll of polls.

The Republican presidential nominee held a healthier margin there for most of the summer, but Obama has aggressively targeted Sunshine State voters on the airwaves, topping McCain by a margin of more than eight to one when it comes to ad spending.

Florida has 27 electoral votes at stake.

McCain also leads by a one-point margin in Ohio, up 47-46 percent. No Republican has won the White House without winning Ohio, which has 20 electoral votes at stake.

The Ohio poll of polls consists of three surveys: Big Ten Battleground (Sept. 14-17), CNN/Time/ORC (Sept. 14-16), and Ohio Newspaper Poll/University of Cincinnati (Sept. 12-16).

The Florida poll of polls consists of four surveys: ARG (September 14-17), CNN/Time/ORC (September 14-16), Research 2000 (September 15-18), and Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 (September 14-17).

In Missouri, a battleground with 11 electoral votes up for grabs, McCain leads Obama by four points, 49-45 percent, according to a Research 2000 poll released Sunday.

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In Rural America, It's McCain And Palin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ~ Republican presidential nominee John McCain leads Democratic rival Barack Obama by 10 percentage points, 51 percent to 41 percent, among rural voters in 13 pivotal states, a poll released on Monday shows.

Rural voters, who tend to be social and fiscal conservatives, strongly preferred McCain over Obama on taxes and the war in Iraq. The two men are tied statistically on the economy, which respondents said was their No. 1 issue.

The poll questioned 742 likely voters Tuesday through Thursday in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

Nearly one-fifth of Americans live in rural areas.

By a 2-to-1 margin, rural voters said Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, "represents the values of rural communities." Fifty percent said her nomination made them more likely to vote for McCain.

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Oklahoma, Alabama Best McCain-Palin States?

Oklahoma and Alabama appear poised to deliver the highest percentage of the November vote for Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Polls in both states show the Republican ticket with huge leads over Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

In Alabama, polls consistently have shown McCain-Palin with a 25-30 percent lead over Obama-Biden. In Oklahoma, polls show the GOP team up by 33-38 percent.

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Gallup, Pew Find Top Race Tight Again

THE POLL: Gallup Poll Daily tracking, national presidential race among registered voters

THE NUMBERS: Barack Obama 48 percent, John McCain 44 percent

OF INTEREST: According to this poll, voters' views of the race have returned to about where they were for much of the summer, when Obama generally had a modest but consistent lead over McCain. The Republican caught Obama as the GOP convention ended in early September and McCain's lead in this survey reached as high as 5 percentage points. Obama, though, has regained a slender advantage.

DETAILS: Conducted Sept. 15-17 by landline and cellular telephone with 2,815 registered voters. Sampling error margin plus or minus 2 percentage points.

THE POLL: Pew Research Center, national presidential race among registered voters

THE NUMBERS: Barack Obama 46 percent, John McCain 44 percent

OF INTEREST: This poll, now showing an even contest, has changed little over the summer. Narrowed to likely voters, each candidate gets an even tighter 46 percent. Republicans are more excited than before the party conventions of late August and early September, though Obama's remain slightly more energized. McCain has cut Obama's edge for being more trusted on the economy _ voters' top issue _ from 15 percentage points in July to 9 points. People are still split about evenly over whether they think the Republican's policies will differ from those of the unpopular President Bush. Obama is still viewed as likelier than McCain to bring change to Washington.

DETAILS: Conducted Sept. 9-14 by landline and cellular telephone with 2,509 registered voters. Sampling error margin plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

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Ron Kessler: Why The Polls May Be Wrong

By Ron Kessler On Newsmax.com ~ Most polls may be overstating Barack Obama’s support by 5 to 10 percentage points because those surveyed may not be telling the truth about voting for him, ad executive Gabe Joseph III tells Newsmax.

It is possible that, when live callers ask for a respondent’s name, the individual is more likely to say he will vote for Obama, says Joseph, president of ccAdvertising, which conducts polls for a range of candidates and members of Congress. [Some in the industry describe Joseph's firm as "a robocall vendor."] When automated dialers do the polling, respondents are more likely to give an honest answer because they think of the poll as being anonymous.

“I believe the traditional pollsters, when they ask your name, institute a bias,” Joseph says. “We never ask anybody who they are. We do not have to. The only personal identification we obtain comes at the end of the survey when we ask about gender and age.”

The difference is apparent when automated pollster results are compared with traditional polls that ask the individual’s name, he says. In many circles, particularly within the traditional Democrat base, it is politically incorrect to tell a pollster the respondent will not vote for Obama, he says.

“It’s very difficult to ask a question about race and get an accurate answer,” Joseph says. “People are concerned that their name is going to get out. So the only way that we’ve been able to track it, is to actually do surveys where the respondent is not identified before elections, before primaries. If you do one beforehand, you can look at the difference and you see what’s really happening.”

The clearest example of the disparity was in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. The polls showed Obama running ahead of Hillary Clinton by up to 13 points. When the returns came in, Obama had lost by three points to his fellow Democrat.

The phenomenon has been dubbed the Bradley Effect, first identified in a 1982 California gubernatorial election. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was the supposed front-runner in an open race. Polls showed the African-American Democrat running well ahead of white Republican candidate George Deukmejian. Yet, when the returns came in, Bradley lost by more than 50,000 votes.

To be sure, when it comes to Obama, not every primary election validated the Bradley Effect. But now, in every state ccAdvertising is tracking, Joseph has discerned “a 5-point to 10-point difference” between the number of respondents who say they will vote for Obama when asked anonymously, compared with results when pollsters request their names.

In ccAdvertising’s most recent poll on Sept. 7, the company surveyed 130,000 homes in 13 targeted states. Overall, 48.5 percent of the respondents said they would vote for McCain, compared with 40.2 percent for Obama, a difference of 8.3 percentage points. Of the respondents, 11.3 percent said they had no preference.

The results showed a decrease in support for Obama of 4.9 percent and an increase in support for McCain of 6.3 percent over a previous poll taken before the conventions.

McCain won 11 of the states surveyed with 149 electoral votes: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Obama won two of the states surveyed with 86 electoral votes: California and New York.

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Poll Finds McCain-Palin Surge In New Jersey

A new Quinnipiac University Poll conducted in New Jersey shows the race for president there is tightening.

John McCain now trails Barack Obama in New Jersey by 45-48 percent, making the race a virtual tie when the poll's 2.8% margin of error is factored in.

The result represents a seven point swing toward McCain, who trailed Obama by ten percentage points in an August poll from Quinnipiac.

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TMRO Poll Voters Back McCain, Palin

Almost 70 percent of those who voted in our poll asking who would be elected president if the election had been held now chose Republican John McCain, compared to 30 percent for Barack Obama. That's a turnaround from a previous poll asking the same question; in it, Obama received 57 percent, McCain 43 percent.

In our poll asking for a "Salute" or "Yuck" on the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate, 71 percent gave a salute.

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Is GOP Convention Bounce Coming Early?

By Mark Impomeni/Political Machine ~ On the day after the Republican Party convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, there are indications that the traditional post-convention bounce usually seen in opinion polling is materializing early for the GOP.

Analysis

The Real Clear Politics polling average has narrowed to show Sen. Barack Obama with a 2.5 point lead over Sen. John McCain. That is down four points in the last three days.

The reason for the tightening can be found in two of the components of the average, the Gallup and Rasmussen Reports daily tracking polls.

Gallup shows the race as a 48-44% Obama lead, down from a nine-point Obama advantage on Aug. 29th, the day after his acceptance speech. That was Sen. Obama's biggest lead since Aug. 15th and came on the same day that Sen. McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. On Thursday, Rasmussen showed the race as a two point Obama lead, 48-46%. Both polls have very large sample sizes, 2800 and 3000 respectively, and measure public opinion over three days, averaging the result. Gallup measures registered voters while Rasmussen measures likely voters.

The news for the McCain campaign is likely to get better. Both results only include one day in in which voters would have seen Gov. Palin's vice-presidential acceptance speech. With the enthusiastic response to her address, and the fact that Plain is now more popular than either presidential candidate, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, the daily tracking numbers should close even further as the weekend progresses.

By Monday, all three days in the rolling average of each poll will include post-Palin speech sampling. That result is likely to show an even race or perhaps a small McCain lead.

The pattern of this election appears to be set. This will be a very close election, just like the elections of 2000 and 2004. Democrats still appear to have the built-in advantages.

But the selection of Gov. Palin by Sen. McCain has energized the Republican base like never before in this contest. Conservatives for the first time have a reason to vote for the McCain ticket, rather than against the Democrats.

The first Presidential debate takes place on Friday, Sept. 26th. Unless one of the candidates has a major misstep before then, the race is likely to remain even or close until then.

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Surprise Poll Result: McCain Tops Obama

John McCain has overtaken Barack Obama in the presidential race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released Wednesday morning. McCain leads Obama 46 to 41 percent among likely voters, which the poll found is outside the margin of error. Reuters/Zogby had Obama ahead by 7-points as recently as mid July. McCain's resurgence comes at the doorstep of the Democratic Convention, and follows other polling that collectively indicates the presidential race has become a dead heat.

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Poll: It's A McCain-Obama Dead Heat

Intensified attacks by Republican John McCain on the character of his Democratic opponent have coincided with Barack Obama losing a 9 percentage point advantage in a national poll, which showed the candidates running dead even over the weekend.

In the course of the McCain offensive, Obama’s lead in a Gallup Poll tracking survey slid from nine percentage points on July 26, when he returned from overseas, to nothing by Saturday, when the poll showed the candidates tied at 44 percent.

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