Monday, February 14, 2011

Republican Poll Preview

We're going to have our newest national Republican President poll out in full tomorrow but here are some of the highlights:

-Want to know just how unrepresentative of the GOP base CPAC straw poll voters are? Among actual Republican primary voters only 30% have a favorable opinion of Ron Paul to 37% who view him in a negative light. Outside of his passionate but small following most Republicans actually dislike Paul (and I imagine wish he would go away.)

-Donald Trump for President? Well he'll have to overcome the fact that a majority of Republicans dislike him. Only 29% rate Trump favorably to 56% who have a negative opinion. Trump certainly has name recognition- 85% with an opinion of him is greater than the 81% for Newt Gingrich, 80% for Mitt Romney, and 73% for Mike Huckabee and trails behind only Palin's 90%. But his name recognition is a curse- it's not as if Trump's poll numbers could rise as voters get to know him better- they already know him and dislike him.

-We've written a lot about how Republicans love Sarah Palin but she does poorly in Presidential preference polls because even if folks like her they don't exactly think she's White House material. We asked GOP primary voters on this poll whether they thought Palin was more qualified to be President or Vice President- only 29% said she was most qualified for the Chief Executive job while 46% said she was more suited to be #2. I doubt she's going to run but if she does that sort of mentality within her own party base is going to be difficult to overcome.

We'll have a little more from the poll later this afternoon, and the full thing will be out tomorrow.

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