Thoughts on the CNN New Hampshire Poll
by Jonathan Singer, Tue Jul 17, 2007 at 06:28:24 PM EDT
Now that the quick hit on the CNN/WMUR/UNH New Hampsire poll (.pdf) is out of the way, I'd like to get into some of the nitty gritty details from the data.
My initial reading of the poll is that reader Obama08 is correct in stating that the most important number are those that show the race is highly fluid at this point. In fact, according to the poll only 10 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of Republicans indicate being definitely decided at this point, with just 26 percent of Democrats and 22 percent of Republicans leaning towards one candidate. Indeed, despite the fact that the poll shows that only a small percentage of voters are undecided when given a list of candidates from which to choose (9 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans), a strong majority of New Hampshire primary voters concede that they're still trying to decide at this juncture.
The poll contains some disconcerting news for Republicans, both those hoping that Fred Thompson will be their party's savior as well the base as a whole. Despite the fact that Thompson has effectively been in the race for a good deal of time, he has seen no bump whatsover during the last month, moving from 12 percent in June to 13 percent in July (a statistically insignificant move). Thompson is also the candidate with the second lowest potential for support, with 30 percent of GOP primary voters stating that they would not support him under any circumstances. As I noted in the headline of my previous post on this poll, Thompson's Southern conservative schtick isn't going over too well in New Hampshire, which tends not to get as frenzied by Southerners as do other states.
But perhaps more worrisome, there is still a good deal of unhappiness among the Republican ranks in New Hampshire with their presidential choices. Just 15 percent of Republicans say that they are "very satisfied" with their field. Even adding on the 56 percent who say they are "fairly satisfied", there still remains a sizable minority -- 27 percent -- unsatisfied by the current crop of Republican presidential candidates. Compared with the fact that just 12 percent of Democratic primary voters are unhappy with their choices (with 86 percent satisfied, 32 percent of whom very much so), Republicans continue to show an excitement gap that could cause them great problems this year.
Briefly on the Democratic race before I move on to other things in other posts, about one sixth of Democratic primary voters indicate that they wouldn't consider supporting Hillary Clinton (16 percent) or Barack Obama (15 percent), each, while close to a quarter (24 percent) say they would not consider supporting John Edwards. While this does not mean that he does not have the potential of winning in the Granite State -- looking at the high number of actual undecideds shows that it cannot be the case that any candidate has the race sewn up -- there still should be a concern within the Edwards camp that New Hampshire voters are not receiving their message.
Tags: 2008, Democratic primaries, New Hampshire, Republican Primaries (all tags)
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