Despite rising job approval, Kay Hagan puts up her worst numbers yet against unsettled NC GOP field in new PPP poll

While some things have changed since 1998, a lot about the North Carolina electorate hasn't, according to Public Policy Polling crosstabs. That year, fmr. Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-NC) (left) lost after one term in the U.S. Senate to newcomer John Edwards (D-NC). Photos courtesy of Ray Lustig / The Washington Post and Brooks Kraft/Corbis Sygma.

 
For all the chatter about the Republican's current inability to recruit a quality candidate to challenge North Carolina's junior Senator in the 2014 election, a new Public Policy Polling survey offers the state GOP with a glimmer of hope. Out of the Democratic pollster's six polls on the race since December 2012, a Republican named Cherie Berry has finally managed to TIE Sen. Kay Hagan (D), despite Hagan reaching her highest job approval rating yet (46/40%).

The chart below documents the results of PPP's 2014 NC Senate poll since December 2012, including only the candidates surveyed in the most recent poll:

Unfortunately for pollsters and researchers, exit polling in non-presidential year North Carolina Senate races is hard to come by (in 2010, there was no exit polling because Richard Burr led Elaine Marshall consistently throughout the campaign; in 2006, there was no NC Senate race; in 2002, major malfunctions with VNS led to exit polls being off, and as a result, incredibly difficult to come by. 1998 was the last NC Midterm with readily available exit poll data). This fact is important because without such data, it can be difficult for pollsters to weight the expected electorate.

Nevertheless, a frequently stated rule of thumb regarding midterms is that they typically feature a more white, less ethnically diverse, older, and generally more Republican type of voter than seen in Presidential election years.

So how do PPP's most recent findings regarding the potential 2014 electorate stack up as compared to the 2012 NC presidential electorate, and the 1998 Midterm electorate?

At least in terms of racial identification, the PPP crosstabs reveal an electorate that looks very similar to the one seen in 1998, when Democratic pariah John Edwards, then just beginning his political career and still well-liked, defeated 1-term incumbent Republican Senator and pig-farmer Lauch Faircloth, 51-47%. That year, 76% of the electorate identified as white, 22% identified as black, and 2% Hispanic/other. Flash forward 16 years to PPP's May survey, and the electorate is 76% white, 18% black, and 6% Hispanic/other.

In terms of partisan identification, age, and gender, the crosstabs diverge from the '98 Edwards/Faircloth race, at times resembling the 2012 electorate, and at times resembling nothing North Carolina electoral politics has experienced yet.

The chart below displays the North Carolina electorate in every election featuring a readily available exit poll since 1992, broken down by gender identification, age identification, and partisan identification:

2008 vs. 2016 Democratic Primary Contests: A Comparison of Hillary's "Inevitability" THEN and NOW

Contrary to what some believe, the Hillary Clinton of 2008 was not nearly as strong in Democratic primary polling as she is today. Photo courtesy of businessinsider.com (left).

 Its been eight years since the Democratic Party has seen a competitive primary contest, but the similarities between this point in the 2008 presidential cycle and today are undeniable; Hillary Clinton is the obvious Democratic standard-bearer, she has a major lead against her possible primary contenders, and the sense of inevitability surrounding her eventual coronation is strong and near-universal.

But for all the comparisons between Hillary '08 and Hillary '16, there are a number of differences. In 2008, she was running AGAINST eight years of Republican reign that had become amazingly unpopular with the American public. This time around, she'll be running to continue the legacy of what has been, based merely on presidential job approval ratings, 8 years of a mediocre presidency.

Furthermore, today, the mere thought of having to compete against a more-popular Clinton-juggernaut has essentially frozen the Democratic Primary field (with the sole exception of the little-known and ambitious Governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley). In 2005, there was no "frozen field" to speak of. The newly unemployed John Edwards made moves almost immediately following his failed Vice Presidential bid to indicate he was starting a 4-year-campaign for the presidency. Questions abounded regarding the intentions of Sen. John Kerry, the unsuccessful '04 Democratic nominee that only lost by a respectable 2.5 pt margin. The much aggrieved 2000 nominee and former Vice President Al Gore was lurking in the background, as well as 2004 grass-roots super-star and one-time favorite for the nomination, Howard Dean. In the end, only 1 of the above mentioned names jumped into the 2008 primary, but unlike today, potential candidates were making some not-so-under-the-radar movements towards a presidential bid.

Perhaps the most significant difference between the 2008 and 2016 presidential presidential cycles to date lies in the polling. The chart below shows the monthly polling averages of the Obama v. Clinton primary battle from immediately following the 2004 election to the conclusion of the Democratic primary in June 2008, divided into two periods: Nov. 2004 through the Iowa Caucus, and the Iowa Caucus through Hillary's campaign suspension in June. The information in the chart is based off of about 350 surveys compiled from pollster.com, real clear politics, and Wikipedia. The excel file including the 350 survey data-set can be viewed here. To be included in the data set, a 2008 poll must have tested both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the hypothetical primary contest. Where I was able to track down a survey's cross tabs, a demographic break down of the Hillary/Obama vote is provided, though you'd be surprised as to how difficult it can be to track down obscure, 5-year old cross tabs.

For a full list of the surveys used in compiling the averages, go here.

As you can see, Hillary enjoyed a healthy 16 point lead over Barack Obama during the early stages of the 2008 primary (39-23%), before any contest was held; you know...the period in which pundits were discussing her apparent inevitability. Which begs the question, at least in the context of polling: what was so inevitable about a 16 point lead, especially when the leader was well below 50%?

2016: Paul Ryan More Unpopular than Sarah Palin, John Edwards, and Joe Lieberman Were At This Point

2004 Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards (D) (left) actually had a much better net favorability rating at this point in time following the 2004 election than either 2012 nominee Paul Ryan (R), or 2008 nominee Sarah Palin (R).

GOP budget-guy, numbers-hunk, and one-time promising candidate for President in 2012 and 2016 got smacked with some upsetting "numbers" himself this week when Rasmussen Reports released their latest national survey on likely voter impressions of the would-be Vice President: 

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Paul Ryan? (nat'l survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted March 14-15, 2013)
Favorable:    35%   (-8)*
Unfavorable:   54%   (+8)
*Number in parentheses represent the percent-change in Ryan's favorable/unfavorable rating among likely voters nationwide since Rasmussen's previous poll on the race in January.

Only a little more than 1 in 3 likely voters view the young Wisconsin Congressman favorably, while a solid majority see him unfavorably. To be blunt, those are really awful numbers. We're talking Nancy Pelosi, Sarah Palin type numbers. But they're even worse in the context of where he once stood on Rasmussen Reports, as recently as just two and seven months ago:

Over the course of just two months, views of Paul Ryan have gone from being split evenly among the electorate, to tilting overwhelmingly unfavorable...at least, according to Rasmussen Reports. Where did his massive 16 point negative downturn since January come from? Ryan fell across the board, but most notably among Republicans. In fact, his drop among Republicans is so stark that you almost have to chalk it up to statistical error. For example, a whopping 40% of his own party views him unfavorably, with just 52% seeing him favorably. Compare that to his January Rasmussen rating, when his fav/unfav rating was a staggeringly high 76/14% among Republicans.

Even outside of Rasmussen Reports, you can detect a distinct downward trajectory since the election last November in Paul Ryan's favorability ratings. Perhaps his 'front-and-center' role in the nation's budget debate is to blame. Or perhaps it's due to the Democratic-created notion that Paul Ryan wants to end Medicare as we know it. Or perhaps it's simply his association with a failed presidential campaign. Either way, his post election favorability ratings have been worse than each of the 3 preceeding Vice Presidential losers before him, at a similar point in time following their election loss; the 3 VP nominees being Sarah Palin (R), John Edwards (D), and Joe Lieberman (D). The chart below averages the findings of every favorability survey on the four former VP nominees, from the time of their selection, until present day (or the equivalent thereof in 2009, 2005, and 2001). The full list of each nominee's favorable/unfavorable ratings can be found here, and was compiled from Pollster, TPM Poll tracker, Poll Report, and National Journal.

While all four of the most recent failed Vice Presidential candidates maintained overall positive favorability ratings from the time of their selection to this point in their post-VP run, Paul Ryan's rating remains the lowest, at just 41/40%. Consider the fact that both Joe Lieberman AND John Edwards (pre-love-child scandal, of course) maintained personal favorable ratings of +20 or more (44/15% and 46/26%, respectively). In short, Joe Lieberman was the most popular VP nominee of the last 4 elections, while Paul Ryan is the least (based on favorability ratings from the time of their selection to this point in their post-VP runs).