Palin Nearly Ties Senator Begich in Democratic Poll, & the Crosstabs Indicate Room For Growth

PPP finds that Palin's support among Conservatives, Republicans, and 2012 Romney voters is less unified than Begich's support among Liberals, Democrats, and 2012 Obama voters. Yet Palin, who resigned from Alaska statewide office almost five years ago, only trails 44-40% in a new poll. Pic courtesy of Joshua Lott/Getty Images North America.

One of the country's most unpopular politicians, at least according to national favorability surveys, is competitive nonetheless in the state she governed for almost three years from 2006-2009. The latest poll from Republican agitator and Democratic pollster, Public Policy Polling, finds Senator Mark Begich's standing with Alaska voters deteriorating significantly over the last year, with what was once a near 20 point lead over former Governor Sarah Palin in a hypothetical Senate match-up deteriorating to just a 4 point lead, barely outside the poll's 3.6% margin of error. And a close look at the numbers indicates she's closer to her polling floor, while Begich is closer to his ceiling.

For the record, Palin isn't even all that popular in Alaska,  much less the brutal numbers she receives nationwide. A year-old Harper Polling (R) survey found Palin with an abysmal 34/60% favorability rating in The Last Frontier, while PPP puts her currently at 39/55%. But at least as far as the Democratic pollster is concerned, Palin's standing has gradually improved since their first survey in February of last year (from  34/59% favorability to 39/55%), reaffirming that absence can make the heart grow fonder. In fact, -15% represents her best favorability rating in PPP polling of the state of Alaska since 2010.

Furthermore, PPP's 44-40% Begich vs. Palin finding is the best she's performed against the incumbent in any survey taken of the race to date.

And if you dig into some of PPP's crosstabs, you can begin to see how Palin has more room for growth. Namely, Democrats, Liberals, and 2012 Obama voters are very united behind Senator Begich. Republicans, Conservatives, and 2012 Romney voters, on the other hand, are less united behind a Palin Senate candidacy.

For starters, take 2012 Obama voters. Those respondents supported Begich at a rate of 88%, while only 69% of self-identified Romney voters supported Palin. Among the 12% of Alaskans who said they voted for someone other than Romney or Obama in 2012, or didn't know either way, Palin led 36-30%.

Consider also PPP's partisan identification findings. Eighty-two percent of self-identified Democratic respondents said they would support Begich this November, while just 68% of Republicans said the same of Palin. Independent voters supported the Democrat by 16 points.

Finally, look in the crosstabs for the ideological findings. Palin carries roughly 1/3 of Conservatives (64%), while Begich nabs over three-quarters of Liberals (77%). He also wins moderates by a huge margin (64-26%).

A Peculiar Disconnect Between PPP's Early State & National 2016 Polling

Hillary Clinton could join her husband and Jimmy Carter as the only Democrats to carry Georgia since 1960, if early PPP polling is any indiciation. About the photo: Bill Clinton dines with Jimmy Carter in a bar in Atlanta in August 1992. Courtesy of AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

In what had to be considered excellent news for Democrats across the country last week, another PPP 2016 survey in loyally Republican Georgia shows Hillary Clinton amazingly competitive in what has typically been unfriendly territory for Democrats, and Hillary Clinton personally.

Democrats haven't won in Georgia at a presidential level since Bill Clinton's narrow half-point victory in 1992. Before that, it was native son Jimmy Carter in 1980. As for Hillary, though she's never faced the Georgia general electorate, her own party wasn't very kind to her on the only occasion she's ever had to run on their statewide ballot (losing to Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary by 35 points).

But that could all change in 2016 if Public Policy Polling's state surveys are on the mark. For the second time this year, Hillary Clinton essentially TIES or LEADS all of her likely Republican competitors in the largest state of the Deep South:

Those would be very impressive numbers for any Democrat, especially considering Barack Obama lost the state by 8 and 5 points in 2012 and 2008, while John Kerry and Al Gore lost the state by 17 and 12 points in 2004 and 2000.

But the Georgia numbers caught the eye of at least one pollster for another reason - how exactly could Hillary Clinton be performing so well in Georgia, while finding herself in a tie with most of her GOP opponents in a NATIONAL survey from the same polling company just two weeks prior?

Consider this: in each of the last four presidential elections (2000-2012), the state of Georgia has voted about a net 12 points more for the Republican over the Democrat than the nation as a whole. For example, while Barack Obama carried the national popular vote by a margin of 4 points in 2012, Mitt Romney won Georgia by 8 points.

Obama dispensed of McCain nationwide by 7 points in 2008, while McCain still managed to carry Georgia by 5.

Palin STRONG In Alaska GOP Primary, WEAK In The General (Unless Republicans Come Home)

Palin only wins 69% of Republicans in a head-to-head against incumbent Sen. Mark Begich (D). Photo courtesy of Corbis.

Former Governor and Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin continues to struggle with poor public perception, not just nationwide, but in her home-state as well, according to the latest survey from Democratic pollster PPP.

39% of Alaskan registered voters view Palin favorably, 58% view her unfavorably. And while 40% say they would vote to put Palin, who resigned her Governorship in 2009, back in office, 52% say they would support the current incumbent, Democratic Senator Mark Begich.

On the surface, the numbers are pretty dim for the woman that once attracted a crowd of 60,000 to Florida in 2008, or who once caused reporters to stop mid-assignment due to multiple public flirtations with a 2012 presidential bid. 

But it's not all dreadful news for Palin-land, especially once you look beyond the 2014 general Senate election.

So what exactly is NOT dreadful about a -19 home-state favorability rating? The fact that you were at -25 in the previous survey, which is exactly where Palin stood with Alaska voters in February (34/59%). In fact, her current 39/58% rating is the best shape she's been in since January 2010, PPP's first ever poll of Alaska. See the table below:

What about that double-digit deficit against Mark Begich, you might ask? Again, it's all a matter of perspective, and when you consider that Palin trailed Begich 54-38% in February, 52-40% doesn't seem like as steep a hill to climb as it may otherwise have.

So while Palin is still unpopular, and still trails the incumbent by double-digits, at least the trend lines look positive. Though that's not the best news PPP has for Palin.

In their first 2014 Alaska Senate GOP primary survey to include Palin, PPP finds her in the lead by 10 points, outpacing the current sitting Lt. Governor and announced candidate Mead Treadwell, former Attorney General Dan Sullivan, and 2010 GOP Senate nominee and 2014 candidate Joe Miller, 36-26-15-12%. This puts the Democratic pollster in line with Republican firm Harper Polling, which found Palin leading the same crew of GOP candidates (except Dan Sullivan) in May, 32-30-14%.

PPP also polled a variety of 3-way GOP primary matches, sadly none of which pitted Palin alone against the more Alaska Establishment friendly candidates Mead Treadwell and Dan Sullivan. I say 'sadly' because long-time Alaska political observer, unofficial Palin spokesman, and C4P contributor Ian Lazaran, seems rather convinced that in the unlikely event she enters the 2014 Senate race, Miller would bow out.

Lazaran's assertions regarding Miller's status in the race in the event of a Palin bid are obviously mere assumptions, but assume he's right. Assume the Palin protege, whether out of a sense of obligation or necessity, did withdraw under such a scenario. What would a Palin vs. Treadwell vs. Sullivan primary look like?

Beyond the obvious, there's empirical evidence to suggest that Palin would be the benefactor of a Miller-less GOP primary.  Consider the 4 candidate's favorability ratings across the ideological spectrum of GOP primary voters below, as found by PPP:

Miller performs pitifully across the board, but ekes out a net positive rating with just one group: very conservative GOP primary voters. In other words, that's his base (if you can call +9 a "base"). Palin's impressive +56 with this group of voters makes it more likely Miller supporters would turn to her over Sullivan or Treadwell, both of whom are popular with very conservative voters, but not as much so as Palin.

One other bit of empirical evidence makes it likely that Miller supporters would turnout to support Palin over Treadwell and Sullivan, if they turned out at all: a 2010 Alaska GOP Senate Primary Contest Exit Poll, conducted by PPP, asked Alaska primary voters:

"Are you more or less likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Sarah Palin, or does it not make a difference?"

Among primary voters who said they were MORE likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Palin (26%), protege Joe Miller defeated Murkowski 82-18%. Among voters who said they were LESS likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Palin (35%), Murkowski won 81-19%.

Clearly, at least at a point in time, Alaska primary voters that liked Palin liked Miller, and vice versa. It's likely that a similar dynamic is still in place. So for the sake of speculation, how would the PPP Alaska GOP primary survey have looked had they not tested Joe Miller? First, assume Palin wins 1/2 of Miller's supporters in the poll, with both Sullivan & Treadwell splitting the remaining Miller respondents. Next, assume Palin wins the overwhelming bulk of Miller supporters (2/3), with the remaining 1/3 being split between Sullivan and Treadwell:

I'm clearly assuming an entire series of events that have not yet occurred, and may never. But if Miller sits the race out, and all his supporters head to the polls on primary day 2014 anyway, the race could wind up looking like the scenarios above.

One final word on an interesting finding from PPP. Incumbent Senator Mark Begich (D) is surprisingly strong with Alaska Republicans, peeling off  20% of them in a head-to-head against Sarah Palin, while limiting the former Governor to an unimpressive 69% of her own party. By comparison, Sen. Begich secures 93% of his own party, while only 6% of Democratic respondents said they'd support Palin.

If PPP's finding holds, it would represent a departure from past Republicans' performance statewide against Democrats, at least based on the limited exit poll data we have available out of Alaska. According to 2008 exits (none were taken in 2012), John McCain carried 93% of Republicans, to Barack Obama's 6%. Sen. Ted Stevens (R) won 77% of Republicans, to Mark Begich's 18%. And Congressman-At-Large Don Young (R) won 77% of Republicans, while Democrat Ethan Berkowitz carried 17%.

Suppose that as the 2014 campaign season heats up, Republicans rally, and return home to Palin, at least to the extent they did with Ted Stevens and Don Young in 2008. What would the PPP result have looked like in that event?

What Joe Miller's Return Means for the GOP: Alaska Senate could be the Christie v. Buono of 2014

Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski debate just prior to the 2010 midterms. According to polling, Miller would lose to incumbent Mark Begich in a landslide in 2014. Photo by Al Grillo, courtesy of Corbis.

Caught up in a media world that that not only longs for, but demands competitive, theatrical political races, it's easy to gloss-over those contests lacking in the "drama" department. And what makes a better political contest than a close one? One where candidates are evenly matched, funded to the tee, and stir the emotions of their supporters and detractors?

But alas, the soap-opera contest cannot always be. Landslides are occasionally inevitable (usually involving a particularly strong incumbent or an unusually weak or unpopular challenger).

Sometimes, however, they're entirely avoidable. And yesterday, the 2014 Alaska Senate race took one big step closer to becoming one of those avoidable landslides for the GOP.

Yes, the Alaska Senate race features a one-term, relatively unknown Senator defending his seat for the first time in a state with a decidedly Republican slant. It's certainly not a state where you'd expect a freshman Democrat, elected by one point in a wave-Presidential year, to be in a position to win a midterm reelection overwhelmingly.

But fortunately for Senator Mark Begich (D-AK), the only Republican challenger making clear signals about running is a man who is despised by his state's general electorate, and underwater with members of his own party... Joe Miller.

So what happened to the man who came painstakingly close to becoming Senator just two and a half years ago? What caused the guy who defeated incumbent Lisa Murkowski in a Republican primary to become so disliked within his own party?

A series of ethical and ideological controversies that emerged near the tail-end of his almost-successful 2010 Senate campaign seem to be the catalyst, and his narrow Senate loss and subsequent law-suit to challenge the results did little to stop the bleeding.

Though whatever the cause of the once-rising Conservative stars' fall, the consequences seem pretty clear. Alaskans say they would vote overwhelmingly to reelect Democrat Mark Begich if their second option is Republican Joe Miller.

Not only that, but Alaska REPUBLICANS would just assume have anybody else - any potential Republican candidate - as their nominee in 2014.

The chart below documents every potential Alaska 2014 Senate Republican primary match-up involving Joe Miller from every pollster to test the race thus far (and the pickings are pretty slim; they're limited to just Public Policy Polling and Harper Polling - both partisan firms). But the results are remarkably similar:

In nearly every possible Alaska GOP primary match-up one could imagine, no matter the ideology or number of candidates running against him, Miller winds up as the LAST choice of Alaska conservatives. Meanwhile Gov. Sean Parnell is the most formidable 2014 Alaska Republican in the primary, with Sarah Palin being the second most formidable.

Is Alaska ready for a Palin comeback? They're not ruling it out, according to Harper Polling

Incumbent Senator Mark Begich (D) (left) could be facing fmr. Governor Sarah Palin (R) in his first reelection battle next November. Photo on left courtesy of Loren Holmes, photo on right courtesy of A.P.

GOP survey group Harper Polling is out with a new 2014 Senate Republican Primary Poll of Alaska, sponsored by the Tea Party Leadership Fund. And there's some encouraging news for Sarah Palin fans -- home-state Republicans still regard the former Governor and Vice Presidential nominee fondly, enough-so that they'd be willing to put her back in elected office next year:

If the Republican Primary election for U.S. Senator were held today, who would you vote for? Joe Miller, Sarah Palin, or Mead Treadwell?

Sarah Palin  --  32%
Mead Treadwell  --  30%
Joe Miller  --  14%
Not Sure  --  24%

In a one-on-one race with the only candidate to have announced an exploratory committee for 2014 so far, Joe Miller, Palin would lead her former protege 52-19%, with 29% undecided.

Given the public opinion beating Palin took after resigning as Governor of Alaska in the Summer of 2009, followed by brutal media treatment in the aftermath of the Tuscon Arizona shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), it may seem somewhat surprising to see Palin positioned to win her party's nomination for office again in her home-state. But among Alaska GOPers, her favorability rating is a strong 62/30%, she's viewed as the most likely to "fight for conservative values" by 20 points, and as the "strongest person to take on liberal Democrats in Washington" by 16 points.  But as the cross tabs will indicate, Harper Polling is finding a much more "conservative" GOP Senate primary electorate than the one PPP found in the immediate aftermath of 2010's contentious battle between Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski.

On August 24, 2010, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) was NARROWLY defeated by Palin-endorsed Joe Miller for the GOP nomination for Senate, 51-49% (though Murkowski refused to concede the race until 1 week later). The rest was history, as Murkowski went on to wage a successful write-in campaign that November, defeating Miller (R) and McAdams (D) by a small margin.

In the aftermath of that highly contentious Republican primary battle, PPP conducted something like an exit poll, though instead of polling Alaskan primary voters as they left the polling booths, they simply called them at their homes the following day.

In that survey/exit poll of the 2010 Miller v. Murkowski primary battle, 59% of respondents identified themselves as Conservatives, 37% as Moderate, and 4% as Liberal. Now certainly, political environments can change, question wording can yield different results, and pollsters can just be wrong. And based on the disparate ideological I.D. findings of the two polling firms, one has to believe that one of those three things happened.

While PPP found just 59% of the August 2010 Alaska GOP primary electorate to be conservative, 84% of Harper Polling respondents claimed to be conservative. While PPP measured 37% of the 2010 Alaska GOP primary electorate to be Moderate, Harper Polling found just 14% identifying as such. While PPP found 4% identifying as Liberal, Harper Polling found 1%.

And as it's the habit of this blog, let's see what the new Harper Polling survey would have shown had they found a GOP primary electorate more like the one PPP says showed up when Miller narrowly defeated Murkowski in 2010:

Lt. Governor Sean Treadwell and former GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller both see their numbers improve under a 2010 turnout-scenario, while Sarah Palin's decline.

HILLARYLAND: Early In 2016 Race, PPP Finds A Nearly Invincible Hillary Clinton

In 2008, Barack Obama carried 365 electoral college votes against John McCain, roughly on par with the 379 electoral college votes Bill Clinton carried against Bob Dole in 1996, and 1 of the largest electoral college victories since George H. W. Bush trounced Michael Dukakis in 1988, 426-111.

But according to Public Policy Polling (D), when voters are given Hillary Clinton as a hypothetical presidential choice for 2016, she would win in a landslide at least larger than Obama's in 2008 and her husband's in 1996, and at most, would rival FDR, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan for 1 of the largest landslides in history.

A string of recent 2016 polling from the prolific Democratic pollster indicates that Hillary Clinton would be, by far, the Democrat's strongest candidate in a generation. In states as traditionally conservative as Alaska, Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Georgia, Hillary would tie OR defeat every single one of her potential Republican rivals. This fact is far more astounding when you consider that Barack Obama lost all five of these deep-red states in both 2008 and 2012, by no less than 8 points (in Georgia), and no more than 23 points (in Kentucky). Furthermore, Kentucky & Louisiana have not voted Democratic since 1996, Georgia since 1992, Texas since 1976, and Alaska since 1964.  

But just for fun, let's assume Hillary Clinton wins every state Obama won in 2012 (for a total of 332 electoral college votes), as well as the five additional deep-red states PPP finds Hillary performing well in:

That puts Hillary's ECV total at 389, to 149 for her hypothetical Republican opponent (the lowest ECV total for a Republican since Barry Goldwater in 1964!). But really, if PPP is correct regarding their red-state, 2016 polling, what are the odds that Hillary Clinton would win AK, TX, KY, LA, & GA, but lose other less Republican states, such as North Carolina, Indiana, Missouri, or Arizona? Quite slim. The below map takes a look at how many states Hillary Clinton could win in the event she wins every state Obama lost in 2012 by 14 points or less (the margin by which Obama lost Alaska, one of the five red states where PPP finds Hillary Clinton defeating her likely Republican opponents):