In the second Daily Caller-ConservativeHome tracking poll, we learn that grassroots conservatives think Mitt Romney is the most likely GOP presidential hopeful to win in 2012…but that doesn’t mean they plan on voting for him.
Similar to our first tracking poll a couple weeks ago, in which 27% said they thought Romney was the most likely of all potential GOP candidates to win in 2012, 29% say the same this week.
However, when asked who they are most likely to vote for, only 13% name Romney. By comparison, only 6% think Sarah Palin can win, but 11% say they would likely vote for her. See Figure 1 below.
The full March results can be seen here. The full results for this week can be found here.
In the March poll, we asked six questions: who voters like the most; who is most likely to win; who is the most conservative; who will do the best on the economy; who will do the best on spending; and who will do the best with our military engagements overseas. This week, we asked the same six questions and added a question about who voters were most likely to vote for in order to compare voter intent with their views of who was most likely to win.
Over the past few weeks, voters’ preferences have remained fairly constant. However, two findings stand out:
- Tim Pawlenty formally announced his candidacy since the first poll, in which 6% of conservatives said they thought he was the most likely to win in 2012. This week, the figure rose to 11%. It appears his announcement boosted voters' opinion of him. See Figure 2 below.
- Donald Trump has been fairly visible the past few weeks, which may explain his rise in every category (compare the March and April results). Most notably: the percentage of those thinking he is most likely to win rose from 5% to 9%, and those thinking he’s most competent to manage the economy rose from 14% to 17%. Even more people think he’s the most conservative: he rose from 2% to 7% in that category.
Two additional points are worth a mention:
- Huckabee scores lower in our poll than in some other polls out there. We suspect this may be the result of leaving Chris Christie in the mix. Despite his denials about running, Christie hasn’t officially pulled himself out as Mike Pence and John Thune have, and so we’ve left him on the list as a gauge of voter sentiment. Were we to pull him out, Huckabee (and others) would likely see a boost.
- Romney the Competent, not Romney the Inspirational, takes the lead: Only 9% say they like him the most (compared to 16% for Christie and 13% for Palin), and only 13% say they are likely to vote for him, but 29% think he’s got what it takes to win. Romney doesn’t enthuse conservative voters, but the 29% figure is a statement of how they view his odds compared to the others - even those they like more and want to vote for.
Figure 1
Figure 2
The Daily Caller article on today's poll can be read here.
The poll was conducted with 570 members of the Republican Panel, assembled for ConservativeHome by YouGov.
