ConservativeHome's Survey blog

Chris Christie and Paul Ryan for President! The biweekly Daily Caller-ConservativeHome 2012 presidential tracking poll shows a lot of support for those who probably won't be running in 2012

Ryan Streeter

The biweekly Daily Caller-ConservativeHome 2012 GOP Presidential tracking poll shows some remarkable enthusiasm for a couple of people who most probably will not be running – namely, Chris Christie and Paul Ryan. We included them to add a comparative perspective and because they haven’t officially said they won’t run.

To us, the strong showing by Christie and Ryan suggests widespread dissatisfaction with the current field among conservatives. Respondents are attracted to non-sound-bite, straight-talking candidates who seem tough enough to deal with today’s big issues. The top 8 candidates for each of the 5 questions we asked this week are listed below.

• Christie and Trump continue to register high numbers across the board.

• Ryan gets noticeably high marks for someone who only appeared on the national, outside-the-beltway scene fairly recently. He ties Huckabee on the question of whom respondents plan to vote for, and on questions about the economy and spending in Washington, he fares especially well as a newcomer. This is the first time we have included him in the tracking survey.

• Michele Bachmann’s recent less-than-subtle signals about 2012 have also benefitted her. She now tops Sarah Palin in electability and trails her narrowly as a favorite candidate.

• Our poll is unique because we ask about (1) who people think is most electable, (2) whom they plan to vote for (because the two aren’t always aligned, i.e., a respondent may think Romney is most electable but plans to vote for Palin), and (3) who their second choice is (the second-choice question is new). Adding (3) worked well for Bachmann: 15% selected her as their second choice.

In the Daily Caller-ConservativeHome tracking poll, we have chosen to include individuals who, despite saying they are not running, have not officially declared as much. This, to us, helps us gauge public sentiment about all potential candidates, even if some are unlikely candidates. Those who have officially said they aren’t running (Mike Pence, John Thune) are no longer on the list. Barbour issued his statement after we had fielded the current poll, so we'll remove him next time.

Here are the top eight for each question (nine if there was a tie for 8th place). Since we round up or down, those tied are listed in the order they came in by tenths of a percent rather than alphabetically.

Who do you think is most electable in 2012?

• 19% - Chris Christie
• 18% - Mitt Romney 
• 15% - Donald Trump
•   9% - Mike Huckabee
•   6% - Michele Bachmann
•   5% - Paul Ryan
•   5% - Newt Gingrich
•   4% - Sarah Palin
•   4% - Tim Pawlenty

Who would be your top pick for President in 2012?

• 16% - Chris Christie
• 12% - Donald Trump
•   9% - Mitt Romney
•   9% - Sarah Palin
•   9% - Newt Gingrich
•   8% - Michele Bachmann
•   7% - Paul Ryan
•   7% - Mike Huckabee

Who would be your second choice for President in 2012?

• 15% - Michele Bachmann
• 12% - Chris Christie
• 10% - Mike Huckabee
•   9% - Mitt Romney
•   8% - Sarah Palin
•   7% - Donald Trump
•   7% - Newt Gingrich
•   6% - Paul Ryan
•   6% - Herman Cain

 Who would you trust most as President to get the economy growing again?

• 26% - Donald Trump
• 14% - Mitt Romney
• 12.5% - Chris Christie
• 10% - Paul Ryan
•   7% - Newt Gingrich
•   6% - Sarah Palin
•   5% - Herman Cain
•   5% - Ron Paul
•   5% - Michele Bachmann

 Who would you trust most as President to get Washington spending under control?

• 19% - Chris Christie
• 14.5% - Donald Trump
• 13.5% - Paul Ryan
• 11% - Michele Bachmann
•   9% - Ron Paul
•   7% - Newt Gingrich
•   7% - Sarah Palin
•   5% - Mitt Romney

Check out the first and second Daily Caller-ConservativeHome tracking polls, too.

This week’s tracking poll was conducted with 785 members of the Republican Panel, assembled by YouGov for ConservativeHome.

Grassroots conservatives are more excited about the Ryan budget than when it was released, and they are ready to give up their mortgage interest deduction for lower tax rates

Ryan Streeter

Good news for reformers: grassroots conservatives are ready to play hardball on tax reform.

This week, we asked our Republican Panel, a group of self-identified conservative Republicans, about their views on tax reform. Specifically, we asked if they would be willing to give up their deductions and exemptions (including the mortgage interest deduction) in the tax code for lower rates. This kind of tax reform is at the heart of the Ryan budget, as well as other conservative approaches to deficit reduction.

Here is how they responded:

Many are talking today about tax reform. Do you support lowering tax rates but eliminating most deductions and exemptions in the tax code, including the mortgage interest deduction?

• 50% - yes
• 34% - no
• 17% - I don't know

Fifty percent support for fundamental tax reform among conservatives is a good start.

Next, we gauged enthusiasm for the Ryan budget. Currently, GOP members are taking a lot of heat back home for the budget’s proposed reforms to Medicare. Those who voted for the budget (all but four House Republicans) should take heart from our poll: enthusiasm for the budget is high. A plurality of respondents are more excited now about the budget than when it was released.

Are you more or less excited about Paul Ryan’s budget since he released it?

• 41% - more excited
• 31% - just as excited now as I was then
• 10% - I wasn't excited then and am not excited now
• 10% - I don't know
•  7% - less excited

The Republican Panel is comprised of conservatives who place a premium on spending cuts. They have not, to date, been especially enthusiastic about entitlement reform as a solution to the deficit, and yet they are widely supportive of the Ryan budget – which contains significant Medicare reforms.

The appetite for change among Republicans is significant and should provide encouragement for the Ryan-esque reformers in the GOP.

The current poll was conducted with 775 members of the Republican Panel, assembled by YouGov, between April 21-25, 2011.

Are you enthusiastic about the Republican 2012 contenders for the White House? Grassroots conservatives and conservative insiders disagree

Ryan Streeter

Donald Trump’s light has been shining brightly ever since he surprised us with a second-place tie in the NBC/WSJ poll last week.

The media has shifted its attention from Sarah Palin to Michele Bachman, even if the former still outperforms the latter in the polls.

Newt’s numbers still remain fairly high, and Huckabee’s even higher – despite all kinds of reasons why neither will win.

Tim Pawlenty’s admirable video launch captured less attention among voters than political observers, and he remains surprisingly unknown.

Mitt Romney stays ahead of the pack, however much he doesn’t enthuse voters.

The 2012 GOP field of potential White House contenders is, if anything, less congealed than it was a month ago. No one knows what to think at this point.

We decided to gauge enthusiasm for the 2012 field by asking the grassroots conservatives who comprise our Republican Panel and the conservative insiders who comprise our ConservativeHome100 panel the same question:

How enthusiastic are you about the line-up of potential Republican candidates for President in 2012?

Conservative insiders and influencers – columnists, political advisers, congressional chiefs of staff, activists – are not nearly as enthused about the 2012 field as the grassroots. While 56% of the grassroots are either “very enthusiastic” or “somewhat enthusiastic,” only 22% of conservative insiders register any enthusiasm. Of the 22%, all were in the “somewhat” category; zero insiders said they were “very” enthusiastic.

One shouldn’t conclude that the grassroots are overwhelmingly enthusiastic, however. One in five (22%) are either somewhat or not at all enthused. Insiders are even more unenthused, though: 37% say they are either somewhat or not at all enthused.

With 41% of the insiders saying they are neither enthused or unenthused, their position might best be described as hedging their bets or reserving judgment.

My takeaway from this:

• Insiders have a good sense of what electability requires. Their lack of enthusiasm suggests that those in the mix don't have what it takes to beat Obama in 2012.
• The grassroots reflects popular appeal. The fact that the grassroots are more optimistic suggests that some aspect of the current field excites them, and that matters for something. Since we didn't define the field, we don't know if their optimism reflects Trump's surge or an underlying confidence in Romney or whatever. But what's clear is that some level of appeal is registering at the grassroots that isn't among establishment Republicans.

Message to GOP leaders: Conservative voters aren't interested in spending cuts alone; they also want you to get going on the economy

 

Ryan Streeter

Grassroots conservatives who make up our Republican Panel are significantly pessimistic about the economy. In our latest poll a majority believe the economy is in worse now than it was in 2010.

Republicans need to get the budget resolved and focus on an intelligible economic program that people can articulate and understand.

When we asked respondents, “Do you think the economy is better or worse than it was a year ago?” more than a third (34.2%) said “A lot worse.” Nearly two-thirds (65%) think the economy is worse now than it was one year ago.

Do you think the economy is better or worse than it was one year ago?

• Much better:             0.5%
• Somewhat better:      10%
• It’s the same:          24.5%
• Somewhat worse:   30.8%
• A lot worse:             34.2%

In our latest poll, respondents listed getting the economy back on track as the second-most important factor behind fixing the deficit when it comes to what they are looking for in a 2012 GOP presidential candidate.

Respondents in the Republican Panel are largely sympathizers with the Tea Party, and roughly one-third say they are Tea Partiers. Consistently over the past few months, they have prioritized spending cuts, but they have also prioritized the economy and jobs.

Keeping the government open with a budget compromise, followed by several weeks of promoting the Ryan budget and an intelligible economic program, will go a long way with conservative voters. They don’t only care about spending.

Daily Caller-ConservativeHome 2012 Presidential Tracking Poll: Just because voters think Romney is most likely to win doesn't mean they plan on voting for him

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.

On the eve of Paul Ryan’s budget, grassroots conservatives remain anxious about the deficit but think spending cuts are the way forward

This week’s Republican Panel, our survey of grassroots conservatives, sheds some interesting light on how conservative voters are thinking about the deficit and spending cuts as we anticipate the GOP budget next week.

Grassroots conservatives care more about cutting the deficit than anything else right now. When we asked respondents what they were most looking for in the GOP candidate for President in 2012, they answered an individual able to make the tough choices to fix our deficit. 

Fixing the deficit matters more than the ability to cut spending or to get the economy back on track (see graphic far below).

And what do they think is the most important thing Washington needs to do to fix the deficit? Answer: Cut spending across.

Fixing entitlements hardly registered as a solution to the deficit…although it registered a bit higher than the last time we asked the question.

We asked identical questions this week to those we asked in January about what Congress should do to address the deficit. Here is a comparison:

 

Conservatives are less willing to cut from the military, perhaps because of the activity in Libya. More prefer a balanced budget amendment. And, those thinking we should fix entitlements has doubled – from 3% to 6%.

This suggests, perhaps, that the message about entitlements’ relationship to the deficit has been more widely understood. But, in the end, it’s clear that people still think that we can fix the deficit mainly by cutting spending.

Here is what grassroots conservatives think are the most important qualities for the GOP candidate in 2012:

• 40% - Ability to make the tough choices needed to fix the deficit:     
• 27% - Ability to get the economy back on track                              
• 25% - Ability to cut spending in Washington                                     
• 5% - Ability to deal with immigration problems
• 1.5% - Ability to succeed on social issues
• 1% - Ability to bring gas prices down
• 1% - Ability to manage military engagements overseas

This week, ConservativeHome polled 567 conservatives identified by YouGov for our Republican Panel.