The latest Quinnipiac poll of Connecticut voters is out, and while it is (standard disclaimer) only one poll, it shows bad news for Chris Dodd, good news for his strongest challenger, Rob Simmons, and bad news for President Obama’s health care plan.

Here’s the topline result on Simmons vs Dodd:

Former Connecticut Congressman Rob Simmons has an early lead in the Republican primary race for the 2010 U.S. Senate contest and runs better than any other challenger against Sen. Christopher Dodd, topping the Democratic incumbent 49 - 38 percent…

Former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon gets 43 percent to Sen. Dodd’s 41 percent…

Even potential Republican contenders with almost no name recognition and almost no Republican primary voter support give Dodd a run for his money.

Simmons leads a Republican primary matchup with 28 percent, followed by McMahon with 17 percent. No other contender tops 9 percent and 36 percent are undecided.

Connecticut voters disapprove 54 - 40 percent of the job Dodd is doing, compared to a 49 - 43 percent disapproval September 17, and say 53 - 39 percent that he does not deserve reelection.

The poll shows Dodd with a favorable/unfavorable rating of -15 (38-53) among men and -25 (34-59) among Independents, and a re-elect number of -24 (34-58) among men and -32 (30-62) among Independents, the latter mirroring the showing of Jon Corzine and Creigh Deeds among Independents.

It’s still somewhat early to judge whether any of the other Republicans in the race would be electable against Dodd; clearly, Simmons, as a moderate former Congressman, has a very real shot of winning this race, as he’s polling basically where Chris Christie was polling at this stage against Corzine. And bear in mind, this was a poll of registered, not likely voters; the likely-voter screens almost always help the GOP candidate, especially since 2010 will be an off-year election in which polls are consistently showing that voters on the Right are far more motivated and energized. Here’s the poll’s sample:

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Suffolk University’s Political Research Center released its latest survey in the New Jersey Governor’s race today, showing Governor Jon Corzine holding a commanding 9-point lead over Republican challenger Christopher Christie, 42-33 percent. Independent Chris Daggett received 7 percent in the poll.

The result caused a minor stir on the Internet. A very minor stir, as even a cursory examination of the internals of this poll shows that it is deeply flawed, internally contradictory, and not at all reflective of the state of the race in the Garden State.

All polls produce outliers, and polling outfits occasionally get a bad sample. But a result this bad this late should never have been released, if Suffolk University wanted to maintain any semblance of credibility. The fact that it was released leads one to believe that the purpose of the survey was not to predict the outcome in the governor’s race, but to influence it.

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Via Drudge, the Telegraph is reporting that Obama’s Poll numbers have dropped farther and faster than any President on record over the last 50 years. Apparently, people think he’s doing a lousy job.

The failed and failing Presidency of Barack Obama appears to know no bounds when it comes to showing a lack of leadership, a fundamental inability to understand the plight of the people it routinely insists it speaks for, and the problems it naively believes it has the skills, knowledge, and expertise to solve:

Jeffrey Jones of Gallup explained: “The dominant political focus for Obama in the third quarter was the push for health care reform, including his nationally televised address to Congress in early September.
“Obama hoped that Congress would vote on health care legislation before its August recess, but that goal was missed, and some members of Congress faced angry constituents at town hall meetings to discuss health care reform. Meanwhile, unemployment continued to climb near 10 per cent.”

Despite the Telegraph’s poor usage of ’spellcheck’, a passage in this piece is instructive (emphasis mine):

Campaigning for Mr Corzine in Hackensack on Wednesday night, Mr Obama delivered a plea that almost seemed as much for himself as the local candidate: “I’m here today to urge you to cast aside the cynics and the sceptics, and prove to all Americans that leaders who do what’s right and who do what’s hard will be rewarded and not rejected.”

Mr Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs executive and multi-millionaire, is currently running even in New Jersey, which is normally comfortably Democratic, while Mr Deeds is trailing badly in Virginia, a swing state that was key to Mr Obama’s 2008 victory.

Of course we’re skeptical. Corzine, a multi-millionaire (which most of us are NOT) who comes from the evil empire of Wall Street (which we are all supposed to hate), is in trouble and Obama appears willing to waste what little political capital he has left trying to save a man who represents all that he (Obama) has been telling us for two years is at the base of all that troubles America: greed and a shameless lust for power. Why shouldn’t we be skeptical of a mouthpiece hell bent on propping up the very same person we’re being told is at the root of all our collective evil?

To watch this President fail, one big event after another-from losing the Olympics, to dithering on war, to fighting for pitifully poor legislation, to pimping for Politicians only concerned with their poll numbers and getting re-elected at any cost, is to watch a desperate man who finds himself in over his head - at the expense of 300 plus million Americans.

Of COURSE his poll numbers are falling…he sucks at this game, and people are finally coming to terms with it - even his little stick buddies on the left.

Two new polls in the New Jersey governor’s race show Republican challenger Christopher Christie maintaining his lead over incumbent Governor Jon Corzine (D). The Quinnipiac poll shows Christie holding a ten point lead over Corzine, 47-37 percent; while the Fairleigh Dickinson-PublicMind shows a closer race, 47-42 percent in Christie’s favor.

Both margins are essentially unchanged from previous surveys by the respective polls, but there have been minor shifts in the numbers. In the July Quinnipiac poll, Christie garnered 53 percent of respondents, six points better than his showing in today’s poll. Similarly, Corzine found his support shrinking by four points from the last Quinnipiac survey. In the Fairleigh Dickinson poll, both candidates increased their share of respondents over June’s result.

Christie’s negatives have been driven up by Corzine’s slashing attacks against Christie’s ethics and smears of his service as U.S. Attorney for Newark. For most of the past month, Christie has been beset by attacks on everything from phone calls with the White House, to his personal finances, to a four-year old traffic ticket.  But while Corzine’s relentless attacks have raised doubts about Christie, they have not managed to convince many more voters that Corzine deserves a second term.

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Democracy Corps is James Carville and Stan Greenberg’s pet polling organization that always, without fail, issues polling picked up by the media highlighting how Republicans are screwed and Democrats are ever victorious.

Brian Faughnan notes a series of typical headlines from Democracy Corps announcing their polls:

• Don’t Believe the Hype: Support for Health Care Reform is Still Fundamentally Strong
• New Survey Shows Cheney, Sotomayor Debates Threaten to Further Isolate GOP
• Obama Closes the Democrats’ Historical National Security Gap
• Americans See a Lot to Appreciate in Obama’s First 100 Days
• As Specter Leaves the GOP, New Surveys Show Republicans in Disarray

Democracy Corps has a new poll out this week. There is some curiosity to the polling. Unlike their other polls that they usher out with great fanfare, this poll was released with no announcement, no fanfare, and no media roll out.

Why?

Because the polling shows the Democrats are in a world of self-inflicted hurt.

Unlike most polling these day, Democracy Corps does try to maintain a semblance of credibility and looks at likely voters instead of all registered voters. And among their pool of likely voters, 53% of those likely to vote in 2010 think Obama is too liberal. The same number think he’s going to raise taxes. 55% think he doesn’t deliver on his promises.

Oh, and Republicans lead Democrats by 13 points on the issue of who will be a better steward of our tax dollars. Brian has more details. This comes on the heels of a DailyKos poll showing Creigh Deeds is getting slaughtered by Bob McDonnell in Virginia in part because of Barack Obama.

It’s too early to make too many comparisons to 1994, but let’s remember that Republicans are also picking up state legislative seats — 15 so far this year in special elections. Like in 1994, the state legislative elections in 1993 and the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey that year were harbingers of 1994.

Stay tuned.

Our good friends over at the Daily Kos have a story up that projects an amazing level of mystification at the ability of those no-good, lying scoundrels in the GOP to prevent the “collective will of the people,” which the author believes government-centric health care overhaul known as Obamacare to be.

A few excerpts:

The GOP goal is to kill healthcare reform outright. …Not to kill single payer or a public option, but to kill the whole notion of reform.

What an awesomely broad generalization to open with — and what an asinine assertion overall. Do we oppose health care “reform” in the twisted, government-centric sense they mean it? Absolutely. However, there’s not much more that we support than actual reform, that reduces dependence on third-party payers, increases patient choice, personal control of health care dollars, and portability of coverage, while reducing costs and government interference.

Do they earnestly believe that there’s absolutely nothing that needs to be done about health care in this country? Are they so transparently in the pockets of the lobbyists that they are willing make a bold stand on “everything is fine”, when a mere look out the window says it’s not?

I challenge you to find anybody who said on the record that “everything is fine.” Anybody. Not one person has said that; as mentioned above, we all believe in reforming health care in one way or another. However, while we look at the Left’s ideas for reform and argue that, based on simple mathematics and economics (and evidenced by states and countries who have set eminently useful examples), implementing them will only make things worse, they look at our ideas and say, “Those don’t count, because they’re not what we want — therefore you’re automatically in favor of the status quo.”

Let’s journey back to 2005, when President Bush was trying to reform the $20 trillion-in-the-red Social Security program. The Democrats’ statements then - “It’s not a crisis yet, so there’s no reason to act” — are an actual example of claiming nothing needs to be done to save a flagging, debt-ridden program. Simply proposing an alternative solution, while seeking to prevent a country-altering program from being rushed into being without even being read or considered effectively, is not doing that, whatever the left wants to say.

As to the “in the pockets of lobbyists” bit, I love the absolute inability to admit that someone could honestly oppose a leftist proposal (no matter how many times it’s been tried, and proven to be a dud, in the real world) without being paid off. How pathetically self-deluded can you get?

Now, we get to the meat (such as it is) of the post:

Everybody in America seems to hate their insurance provider

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This is yet one more poll that ought to worry Democrats:

USA Today/Gallup poll shows that 59% of Americans say President Obama’s proposals to address the major problems facing the country call for too much government spending, and 52% say Obama’s proposals call for too much expansion of government power.

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Fresh on the heels of yesterday’s poll showing that support for Barack Obama is collapsing in America’s leading political bellwether, today we learn that Virginians are souring on the president as well:

A new Public Policy Polling survey looking at how likely voters for this fall’s election view Barack Obama finds his approval rating at just 48%, with 46% disapproving.

A poll looking at his numbers among an even year general electorate would likely be more favorable because of the greater number of African Americans and young voters that would be represented but PPP is gauging approval ratings in the context of the Gubernatorial race.

Obama’s reviews are highly polarized with 95% of Democrats but only 9% of Republicans giving him good marks. His overall numbers are weak due to poor numbers among independents- 52% of them say they disapprove of Obama’s performance with only 38% giving him favorable ones.

Frankly, even I didn’t expect the Obama spell to wear off this quickly. It’s beginning to seem that no matter where you turn, political independents and ’soft’ Obama supporters are contracting OFS - Obama Fatigue Syndrome. The bad news for Obama is, he can only be new and exciting once.

And by the way - Public Policy Polling is considered a Democrat-leaning firm.

According to Gallup, despite the election of Barack Obama and the Democratic strength in Congress (or because of it), Americans say they are becoming more conservative. For those who may not have realized it, this again emphasizes the importance to Republicans of restoring their credibility as the party of conservatism. While the mainstream media continues to ask how Republicans will moderate their views to compete more effectively, the reality is that they need to demonstrate that they believe what they say about limited government, personal responsibility, and a strong national defense.

Despite the results of the 2008 presidential election, Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven’t changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left…

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As Barack Obama reaches the 100 day mark of his term as President, it’s time to pose a question: why is he so unpopular?

According to Gallup’s April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama’s current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises…

It’s no surprise the liberal media aren’t anxious to point out that their darling is less popular than George W. Bush. But given the Gallup numbers, their hurrahs could be more subdued. USA Today’s front page touted the April poll results as positive, with the headline: “Public thinks highly of Obama.” The current cover of Newsweek magazine ponders “The Secret of His [Mr. Obama's] Success.” The comparison with previous presidents is useful because they are usually popular during their first few months in office - and most presidents have been more popular than Mr. Obama.

The Left in this country does not recognize that the Tea Party movement, the surprising strength of fundraising for GOP campaign committees and the Republican polling advantages in off-year races, all reflect dissatisfaction with Barack Obama’s agenda. The President himself continues to be more popular than his policies, but even that is changing - and it cannot last until the midterm elections. Of course, the longer Democrats choose not to recognize this, the more likely they are to pay the price politically.

National Journal takes a look at some recent polls, and despite Democratic protestations to the contrary, they notice a clear trend:

Three recent polls show the GOP gaining ground on the generic ballot question, starting with an NPR survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies (R) and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (D) that put the two parties exactly square: 42 percent for each. Independents, however, preferred the GOP, 39-30. Democrats led slightly overall, but trailed even worse among independents, in a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll out last week that phrased the generic ballot question in terms of curtailing Democratic power.

The latest Diageo/Hotline data gives Dems a little more breathing room, with the generic Democrat leading 37-32. But the trend line was clear: In January, 46 percent favored the generic Democrat; at the beginning of March, 40 percent did so. Independent voters, who at the beginning of March favored Democrats by 3 points, now lean towards Republicans by the same margin.

If these polls are early indicators of an independent break toward the minority party, it will be doubly surprising given those voters’ continued support for President Obama. Independents were crucial to the party’s success in 2008, going 52-44 for Obama last November and 51-43 for Democratic candidates, according to exit polls.

It’s a long time between now and the midterm elections, but obviously there’s every reason to be optimistic. Democrats are taking comfort in the fact that Obama’s ratings are significantly higher than those of Congress. But voters know that Obama has only been here a few months; they are unlikely to blame him for policies whose effectiveness they question. That’s likely to come a few months down the road, once they recognize that Obama is as much to blame as Congress for the problems in Washington.

One may well think so after having read this:

Just as the economic news was relentlessly negative until the last few days, poll numbers for Republicans were horrific for months. So the GOP should be heartened by the first encouraging polling news it has received perhaps since Lehman Brothers defaulted in mid-September: Republicans have pulled even with Democrats on the generic congressional ballot test, according to a survey by a respected pair of firms.

In the new National Public Radio poll conducted by the Democratic polling company Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and its Republican counterpart, Public Opinion Strategies, 42 percent of the 800 likely voters surveyed March 10 to 14 said that if the next congressional election were held today they would vote for the Republican candidate; an identical percentage of respondents said they would vote for the Democratic one. For several years, Democrats held a substantial lead on this question.

Democrats still outnumbered Republicans in terms of party identification in this poll by 6 points, 45 percent to 39 percent. Democrats also favored their own party’s congressional candidates 83 percent to 7 percent. But voters who call themselves independents gave GOP candidates the edge by 14 points, 38 percent to 24 percent. And self-identified Republicans supported their own party’s candidates 85 percent to 3 percent.

Republican pollster Glen Bolger, who worked on the survey for Public Opinion Strategies, says that this is the first time since 2004 that he has seen independents favoring Republicans on the generic ballot test. Although he concedes that poll participants agreed — by margins of 6 to 11 points — with Democrats more than Republicans on each of the issues tested, he contends that the generic question’s results are “evidence that voters, particularly independents, are worried that they overcorrected in the 2006/2008 elections combined, and now have more of a liberal slant to government than they want. They want change but with checks and balances.”

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Although there is a fairly massive caveat there:

The honeymoon is over, a national poll will signal tomorrow as President Obama’s job approval stumbles to about 50 percent over the lack of improvement with the crippled economy.

The sobering numbers come as the president backpedals from two prime-time gaffes - one comparing his bowling score to a Special Olympian and another awkwardly laughing about the economy, which prompted Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” to ask “are you punch-drunk?”

Pollster John Zogby said his poll out in the morning will show Americans split on the president’s performance. He said the score factors out to “about 50-50.”

(H/T: Protein Wisdom & Jules Crittenden)

“About” in this context could mean anything from 48% to 54%, and if it isn’t 50% it’ll be closer to the latter.  The RCP average implies that this is the first poll that Zogby’s doing for President Obama’s approval ratings, so we don’t know whether he’s looking at likely voters, or adult ones.  Although it should be noted that a 50 approval rating from adult voters wouldn’t be bad news for the President: it’d be the kind of catastrophic news that makes people start exploratory committees.

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Opinion polls ratings for the Prez continue to dive.  All the major polling groups are showing a shrinking approval-to-disapproval ratio.  Today Pew Research, Gallup and CNN all published new numbers, and all showed significant slips.

The Pew polling showed a rather amusing result:

Pew attributes Obama’s slippage in its poll to a change in public perception about his political leanings, with respondents saying by 44 percent to 30 percent that he is listening more to liberals versus moderates, compared to 44 percent who said in February that he was listening more to moderates while 34 percent said it were liberals that had his ear.

There’s a news flash for you, kids.

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This is the latest polling in the race to succeed Kirsten Gillibrand:

The first independent poll in the special House election to replace now-Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) shows that Republicans have a strong chance of taking back Gillibrand’s upstate seat.

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Can we stop saying that Barack Obama is an especially popular President? Because it’s just not true. Oh, to be sure, the President will receive a boost in the polls thanks to his non-State of the Union address, but said bump will likely be temporary and it does not disguise the fact that the President is not nearly as popular as commentators make him out to be. He does fine in the court of public opinion, but all things considered, the numbers ain’t that stratospheric.

This all goes back to the fact that Barack Obama is not the messiah. He is just another politician. Terrified Republicans would do well to take note.

Yes We Can!

Forty-nine percent (49%) of U.S. voters trust their own judgment more than President Obama’s when it comes to the economic issues affecting the nation.

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I’ll let Rasmussen set it up:

Democrats are still trusted more than Republicans to handle the economy by a 44% to 39% margin, but their advantage on the issue has been slipping steadily since November…

In the first poll conducted after Barack Obama was elected president, the Democrats held a 15-point lead over the GOP on economic issues. In December, their lead dropped to 12 points. In January, prior to Obama’s inauguration, Democrats held a nine-point lead on the issue.

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