I realize that at this point polls don’t matter too much, if at all. But they still interest me, because they’re the best evidence we’ve got about public opinion. They can also tell us something about trends, and the trend for Hillary right now appears to be down.
The newest national poll is from Fox, based on phone interviews that were conducted from Jan 4-7 and featuring 1006 registered voters, the vast majority of whom said they intend to vote. For Republican respondents the margin of error was 5%, which is rather large. For the entire survey, the margin of error was 3%, which is more typical but still worthy of note when the figures are close.
It’s very interesting to see what’s happening with the projected head-to-head battles of some of the Republican leaders against Hillary Clinton. Mostly the results seem to preserve the patterns each candidate has already established for quite some time, with Rubio doing the best of all (a +9 lead, more than he’s had before). Cruz is next with a +7 lead (also bigger than he had before), and Trump has a +3 lead.
As usual in national polls, Trump is doing worse against Hillary than the other two, but I believe this is the first time he’s ever led Hillary, so that’s a change for the better for Trump.
Unfortunately the pollsters didn’t ask about Christie (although Christie has led Hillary in earlier national polls), nor did they ask about Carson (same). So, why was there a question about Jeb Bush? At any rate, Bush is doing the worst of those the pollsters did ask about: he’s tied with Hillary.
Does this poll represent a real improvement of the prospects of the Republican field vis-a-vis Hillary? I don’t know. It could be an outlier, or the phenomenon could be real. It will be very very interesting to see if these anti-Hillary trends persist over time, and if they grow.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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Hillary Clinton is a power sucking parasite. She must be exposed for what she is and she must go to the roach motel. Take that Ragin’ Cajun.
Look. If you want to illustrate a polling trend, show a damn graph.
Stand down.
Your fourth paragraph (“I am an AHA…”) does not appear to belong to this article, or am I missing something?
Rough weekend, lol?
I think neo took the blue pill today.
It looks a poor job of cut and paste. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of 8 must have been left over from some other piece of writing – maybe it fell below the screen.
Paragraph 6 shold follow paragraph 3, but might have been written in a separate window, then the two documents combined. Or maybe it happened some otehr way.
And 5th
That was my fault. I was updating this post, https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/01/stunning-defeat-for-bds-at-american-historical-association/, and pasted the material in the wrong post. Not sure how that happened.
Gremlins are liberals.
I drove a Gremlin for about two years. It never expressed any political opinions one way or the other.
AMC’s Gremlin or Gremlin X? They were/are both liberal, just not preachy about it.
Grandmother discoveres ONE WEIRD TRICK to hide classified emails and launder 10 million dollars from Ukraine
Click now to find out her secret !!!!!
https://www.clintonfoundation.org/
Polls may not mean much at this time but the campaigns are probably focusing on them. Here are two questions that have not been mentioned much in the political world.
Question 1: Any polls in New York State between Hillary and Trump?
Question 2: What does Hillary do if Bernie wins Iowa and Hew Hampshire?
This is why Hillary Clinton will be indicted is soon as she achieves the delegates necessary to secure the nomination . Therefore at the convention the delegates will be free to choose any candidate. They will choose the only unvetted candidate that will unite blacks and women voters . Michelle Obama.
Begone ye hildabeäst!!!
For Republican respondents the margin of error was 5%, which is rather large.
The polling outfits all misapply the same formula to get their error figures. But misapplied or not, we can use the same formula to extract information about the poll.
A 5% error means they sampled 400 people they identified as Republicans. As polls go, not a terribly major effort.
Jeb Bush did worse than Trump?
This is credible to me based on my admittedly anecdotal experience:
1. My parents are Democrats to the death, but my mom told me my dad said that Trump has been saying what needs to be said. (!!!!!)
2. My mom likes Marco Rubio.
3. My college-age kids and their friends are all in for Bernie Sanders.
The points about my parents suggest that the votes for the big middle of the Democratic Party are up for grabs, on the national level. All the candidates are doing fine with this group right now.
The last one, though, suggests that the kids are up for grabs, too. And I can see the way to do it. The one political/economic issue these kids understand is our out-of-control cost of college education, and that is the basis for their support for Bernie Sanders.
This has been derided by some commenters as a desire for “free stuff,” but I think it is an issue the Repubs can co-opt, for the benefit of the nation as a whole.
College kids know the enormous disparity in price between what their parents paid per hour and per book, and what they pay. They know that the flow of money is so great, it is being siphoned off into all kinds of things that are not pertinent to educating undergraduate students, or even graduate students. They can be made to understand that one of the drivers for these high costs is the always-higher limits for government-supported college loans.
They know that anybody who can handle a computer has control of their own education. They also know that their ability to educate themselves far outstrips their ability to get credentials for educating themselves.
All a Republican has to do to scoop Bernie Sanders is to say that we have to look at new ways of delivering credit for low-cost education to people who are self-motivated. There are all sorts of problems implementing this goal, but none of them are insurmountable. Indeed, if the commenters are Reddit are to be believed, savvy students have already begun to rely on online course explanations to supplement inadequate teachers, particularly in math.
No Democrat can credibly touch this issue, because the Democratic Party is owned by public sector unions, including the teachers’ unions.
Interesting that you talk about Bernie and young people. My 18 year old daughter says her peers like him or Teump. If either or both are not the nominee many young people won’t vote. Her generation is not enamored of Bill and Hillary or even JEB!
have the kids read all about Bernie and his greedy cronies.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/sanders-and-wife-steered-campaign-nonprofit-money-to-family-and-friends/
Bernie Sanders and his wife have on numerous occasions steered money from organizations under their control to friends and family members, public records show.
————–
According to Jane O’Meara Sanders, the senator’s wife, Sanders’ House campaigns paid her more than $90,000 for consulting and ad placement services from 2002 to 2004. She pocketed about $30,000 of that money. Her daughter Carina Driscoll, Sanders’ stepdaughter, also drew a salary from the campaign. She was paid more than $65,000 between 2000 and 2004, according to her mother.
————-
the senator’s wife would come under scrutiny for expenditures at Burlington College, where she was hired as president in 2004.
Burlington College offered its students a study abroad program in the Caribbean, according to tax filings. It reported spending about $47,000 on that program in the tax year beginning in mid-2008.
Leopold’s son, also named Jonathan, purchased the resort, Burlington College began writing it large checks for all-inclusive stays for its study abroad students.
Her departure was a source of controversy. She reportedly overstated pledged contributions to the school in order to secure a loan from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. The diocese lost between $1.5 million and $2 million on the deal, according to local reports.
I have no idea whatsoever how those two AHA paragraphs made their way into this post. I certainly did not write them! And as far as I know have never even seen them before.
Gremlins?
I am removing them right now, mystery unsolved.
I would be assuaged by a dozen free doughnuts.
You need to speak to Gov Christie. I believe he can help.
Or jeb! He’s looking like he may know where the hidden donuts are…
I don’t know if that frightens the Democrats more than it frightens the Republicans.