NEW HAMPSHIRE–PRESIDENT–DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY—Boston Herald/FPU: Sanders 44, Clinton 47, Biden 9, Webb 1, O’Malley 0, Chafee 0.
NATIONAL–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Rasmussen: Trump 17, Bush 10, Walker 9, Rubio 10, Carson 8, Huckabee 3, Cruz 7, Paul 4, Christie 4, Kasich 4, Fiorina 9, Perry 1, Santorum 1, Jindal 1, Graham 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Boston Herald/FPU: Trump 18, Bush 13, Kasich 12, Walker 4, Christie 3, Paul 6, Carson 4, Cruz 10, Rubio 4, Fiorina 9, Huckabee 3, Jindal 1, Pataki 1, Perry 1, Graham 1
IOWA–PRESIDENT–REPUBLICAN PRIMARY—Suffolk:
Trump 17, Walker 12, Bush 5, Carson 9, Cruz 7, Rubio 10, Huckabee 2, Fiorina 7, Paul 2, Kasich 3, Jindal 1, Perry 1, Santorum 1, Christie 2, Graham 0
MISSOURI–SENATOR–PPP: Sen. Roy Blunt (R) 40, Sec. of State. Jason Kander (D) 35.
Kander is little known, and those numbers for Blunt are life threatening for an incumbent. Put Missouri on the target list.
“I think that if no one stands up to a bully, a bully will just keep doing what they’re doing. We’ve got an empty suit here, full of bravado but not full of anything really meaningful for the country.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by National Journal, on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
An empty suit bully is the GOP Brand now. It is what the base wants.
As you saw above, Sanders is now leading Clinton among “likely voters” in that Boston Herald/FDU poll. I will need to see some other more established “gold standard” polls confirm that. Recent polls did have him within 5-10 points, though. Regardless, I do agree with Harry Enten that Sanders has a ceiling.
Support for Sanders rocketed up in Iowa but has leveled off since June. The story is nearly the same in New Hampshire. Sanders rose from June to July in the Granite State, but his ascent slowed. So what’s going on? Sanders is maxing out on gains simply because of increased name recognition. Different pollsters ask about favorability and name recognition in different ways — making comparisons tricky — but the University of New Hampshire (UNH) polled Democrats in the state in April, June and July. Sanders’s favorable rating went from 45 percent in April to 66 percent in June and then to 69 percent in July. The share of respondents with a neutral opinion or no opinion of Sanders fell from 44 percent to 24 percent and then to 20 percent during that period. In other words, between April and June, Sanders was picking up low hanging fruit: The liberal wing of the Democratic Party learned about Sanders and liked him. But now, most voters who are predisposed to like Sanders already know about him.
“When you’re dealing, and that’s what I am, I’m a dealer, you don’t go in with plans. You go in with a certain flexibility. And you sort of wheel and deal.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by the New York Times, on his presidential campaign not releasing any policy proposals.
That’s not going to fly for long among Republican base voters. Trump will have to be stridently anti-choice, anti-Obamacare, pro-war, pro-theocracy in order to win the nomination. So far, he’s got the anti-black, anti-brown people and anti-woman thing down. But that’s not enough. And I still want to know how he is going to make Mexico pay for the Huge Wall in such a way that they will enjoy it.
Nate Silver says the “election” recent polls describe is hypothetical in at least five ways:
They contemplate a vote today, but we’re currently 174 days from the Iowa caucuses.
They contemplate a national primary, but states vote one at a time or in small groups.
They contemplate a race with 17 candidates, but several candidates will drop out before Iowa and several more will drop out before the other states vote.
They contemplate a winner-take-all vote, but most states are not winner-take-all.
They contemplate a vote among all Republican-leaning registered voters or adults, but in fact only a small fraction of them will turn out for primaries and caucuses.
“This is why it’s exasperating that the mainstream media has become obsessed with how Trump is performing in these polls.”
The Washington Post reports that former Texas Governor Rick Perry has stopped paying all of his campaign staff, which is a sure sign that a campaign is not only floundering but about to go under. Prior to Citizens United, Perry might have already dropped out. But now Super PACs prop up dying candidates. Indeed, Politico says that three candidates are being sustained by Super PACs when their campaigns should already be over:
blo“Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry thudded first, his campaign acknowledging this week that it had stopped paying staff amid funding shortfalls. He’s not alone in experiencing turmoil. Sen. Rand Paul, whose campaign is struggling with deep fundraising and organizational problems, has fixated on throwing grenades at GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, hardly the strategy of a thriving campaign. Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum saw several top staffers depart for a supportive super PAC — a move that comes amid slow fundraising.”
“Yet unlike previous cycles, the tiering of the 2016 Republican presidential field appears unlikely to result in the quick exit of the GOP laggards. That’s because each is the beneficiary of super PACs that in many cases have raised orders of magnitude more than the campaigns themselves.”
Harry Enten looks at the polling since last week’s debate and finds Carly Fiorina the biggest winner: “She gained ground in every poll taken after the debate. In five of the seven polls, the gain was 6 percentage points or more.” The big loser was Scott Walker: “This one surprised me a little, but the polling is clear. Walker is the only candidate who lost ground in every single post-debate poll.”
Trump?
“The polling is a bit split on Trump, but there is enough evidence to say — at the very least — that he didn’t gain any ground. On average, Trump lost about 2 percentage points off his standing, and that includes a Morning Consult poll that found him gaining 7 percentage points — a result no other poll came close to.”