Reviving Rick Perry - The Master of Debate Debacles Is Back On Top After A 3-Year Repentance

Photo courtesy of Joyce Marshall/AP

It was the 'oops' heard 'round the world. A painstakingly demeaning moment in front of millions of TV viewers nationwide turned Texas Governor Rick Perry's 2012 Presidential campaign upside down. Perry, who entered the field later than any contender, needed to make a good impression on voters just tuning into the race. Instead, he reenforced preconceived notions. Like the fact that he was an intellectual lightweight, an accusation hurled often at ex-President George W. Bush. And who could blame anyone for buying into those stereotypes? It's not as if Perry was trapped in a 'gotcha moment' by the debate moderator. He was hoisted by his own petard (thanks Selina!), unable to complete his own talking point on the three federal agencies he would abolish as President.

Needless to say, the "oops" moment was a low point for the Perry campaign. He quickly fell into single digits in national polling and never recovered, having made a huge splash upon his late entry into the race on August 13, 2011. Before the "oops" debate on November 9, 2011, Perry averaged 19% in national Republican primary polls. After that debate, until he suspended his campaign on Jan 19, 2012, he only averaged 7%. See the table below:

Polling data used in averages is compiled from The Roper Center's i-poll database.

Thoroughly mocked and humiliated on a national level, Perry returned home to finish out the three remaining years of his fourth term as governor. And not even they were happy to see him.

If "oops" was Perry's low moment, then his best moment since then would certainly have to be now. After the failure that was 2012, Perry set out to rekindle relationships and reassure potential supporters that 2016 would be much more serious. And external political events, namely the crisis of unaccompanied immigrant children flooding the southern border, have further boosted his profile. All of this has culminated in the two most recent national 2016 GOP primary surveys finding Perry essentially tied for first place.

A recent Fox News poll finds that while several potential candidates are clustered together at the top, Rick Perry and Jeb Bush emerge with 12% a piece, more than anyone else. A CNN poll released just a couple of days earlier found Perry again in double digits amidst a crowded field, with 11%. Chris Christie and Rand Paul led with 13% and 12%, putting Perry well within the +/- 4.5% margin of error.

Yet perhaps more important than Perry's raw percentage of the likely 2016 Republican primary vote are the trend lines. In the case of the Fox News poll, Perry drastically improved his performance from their prior survey in April, where he only managed 5% of the vote (good enough for 6th place). In the CNN survey, Perry nearly doubled his level of support from their prior poll just two months ago, jumping from 7th to 3rd place.

Fun With Nate Silver's New Interactive Map: Democrats' many paths to 270 in 2016

President George W. Bush held Democrat John Kerry to just 53% of the Latino vote in 2004. But even if Republicans replicate Bush's performance in 2016, they'd have to maintain their 2012 margins with white voters to win.

In the 2012 election, Democrats captured a historical 72% of the Hispanic vote, leading many pundits to speculate that Republicans could have a difficult time capturing the White House in 2016...or perhaps, ever again.

In light of the emerging debate surrounding the effect of immigration reform on Presidential election results, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver released an awesome interactive map yesterday that allows users to tamper with various demographic and voting distrubition scenarios to produce certain election results WELL into the future (2048, to be exact). And based on what I've seen from the map, it's pretty difficult to create a plausible scenario where the GOP would win in 2016, much less 2048.

Off the bat, I'll note what Nate Silver pointed out in his article yesterday: "Population growth and changes in voting patterns will have much larger effects than how unauthorized immigrants are treated."

In other words, playing around with the percentage of immigrants that could hypothetically become citizens as a result of immigration reform, as well as the percentage of immigrants that could wind up actually voting, effects the results VERY, very little. I'm talking fractions of a point (which kind of blows a hole in Politico's heavily debunked analysis from last week that immigration reform could create an electoral bonanza for Democrats.)

As a result, I let most of Nate Silver's assumptions remain (which were all derived from a 2012 election baseline), tampering only with white, black, and Hispanic demographic vote distribution.

SCENARIO #1:
The first scenario below shows the GOP winning the 2016 presidential election by a narrow 286-252 electoral college votes, and an even narrower 49.6 - 48.6% popular vote win. But getting to this result requires some pretty optimistic assumptions for the GOP. The Democrats share of the white vote would have to drop from 39% to 37%, their share of the black vote would have to drop from 95% to 90%, and their share of the hispanic vote would have to drop from 72% to 67%:



Regarding the black vote: Democrats attracted between 83-90% support from African Americans in presidential elections from 1984-2004. But the election of one of their own in 2008 boosted those numbers to their now near-unanimous 95%. With another non-African-American Democrat running for President, it's possible to see the African American vote returning to pre-2008 levels of 90% or less for Democrats in 2016.

Hurricane Sandy's Other Legacy: Did Late-Deciders Throw The 2012 Election To Obama?

President-elect George H.W. Bush greets the man he defeated by 8 points 1 month prior at his home in Dec. 1988. According to exit polls, Dukakis was just coming alive in the final days of the campaign. He defeated Bush among the 15% of voters that made up their mind in the final week by an impressive 55-43% margin. Photo courtesy of The Atlantic.

Yesterday morning,  Chris Christie took to MSNBC's 'Morning Joe'  to praise the President for his handling of storm aide since Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey on October 29th. In response to a question from host Joe Scarborough, Christie replied:

 "Listen, the President's kept every promise that he made. And the fact is that...that's what I was saying at the time. What I was saying at the time is I was asked about how was the President doing and I said 'he's doing a good job. He's kept his word.' And so, everybody knows that I have about 95% level of disagreement with Barack Obama on issues of principle and philosophy. But, the fact is, we have a job to do. And what people expect from people they elect is to do their job. And that's why they hate Washington so much..."

Nevermind the context of the comment. The bolded section is what received the blaring Drudge Report headline. And if anything gets remembered from this MSNBC segment during primary season 3 years from now, it won't be Christie's eloquent defense of his actions in the days following Hurricane Sandy. It will be the continued praise of a President loathed by Christie's base.

But putting aside how Republicans feel about whether or not Chris Christie actually cost Mitt Romney the Presidency in 2012, a much more basic question needs answering: did Hurricane Sandy flip the election to Barack Obama? Because if it didn't, Republicans can blame Christie for providing comfort to the enemy at most, but NOT for costing them the presidency.

The simple answer to to the above question is no; Hurricane Sandy did NOT flip the election to President Obama, at least not if you believe the exit polling. And as a result, no, Chris Christie did not cost the GOP the election in 2012. Consider the chart below:

2004-present info compiled from CNN and Roper Center. 1976-2000 info compiled from Best & Krueger's Exit Polls. 1984 exit polls did not include a question regarding the timing of respondents vote decision.

Obama apparently won among voters that decided BEFORE the final few days of the campaign by a margin of 51-47%. But among the 9% of Americans who said they made up their mind in the final few days of the campaign, Obama's margin over Romney was even greater (50-44%).

Coattail Effect: How far can a Governor's job approval carry his or her party's presidential nominee?

Governor Bob McDonnell (R) (left) has an enviable 51/29% job approval rating back home in Virginia, yet the Republican candidate for President lost to the President by 3 points. Meanwhile, Wisconsin GOP Governor Scott Walker (right) had a decent 51/46% job rating, yet Romney lost his state by 7 points.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell became one of the most prolific campaign surrogates in the 2012 election, crisscrossing the country on Mitt Romney's behalf. Not only was he a popular home-state Governor, but he just happened to be the chief executive of one of the most hotly contested swing-states in the nation. That's a helpful combination to have around. While popular Republican governor's like Chris Christie and Susana Martinez were good faces to have associated with the Romney campaign, their home-states of New Jersey and New Mexico were never really in contention. They didn't pack the same one-two punch of Virginia's Bob McDonnell.

Obviously, there's a reason we seldom saw or heard of Florida Governor Rick Scott barnstorming across the state with Mitt Romney, or Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett holding local town-halls with Paul Ryan. Both of them averaged 39/45% and 35/46% job approval/disapproval ratings respectively in the final two months of the campaign.

But does the actual evidence suggest that a Governor's job approval/disapproval rating can affect Presidential election results on a state level? Unfortunately, the data is not terribly clear.
The table below contains a lot of information, so let's break it down piece by piece. It compares the job approval/disapproval ratings for every U.S. governor over the final two months of the 2012 Presidential campaign to actual election results, as well as actual election results to Obama/Romney's favorable/unfavorable ratings. In order for a particular state Governor to be included in the chart, he or she must have had at least one job approval assessment in the September and October before the election. That's why a few Governors, like Alabama, Mississppi, Wyoming, etc are missing. Red entries indicate either a Republican Governor, a Republican election win, or a net state-based positive favorability rating for Mitt Romney in the presidential election. Likewise, blue entries indicate Democratic Governors, a Democratic election win, or a net state-based positive favorability rating for Barack Obama. Since exit polling was only conducted in 31 states in 2012, not every state will include an Obama/Romney favorability assessment. Polling information was compiled from tpm poll tracker, pollster, and various internet searches:

For an easier to read, larger version of the above table, click here.

Of the top 10 most popular Governors in the country (based on polling averages taken from September 1-November 6 2012), 5 were Democrats, and 5 were Republicans, in 5 blue states, and 5 red states. Of the 10 least popular, 5 were Democrats, 4 Republicans, and 1 liberal Independent, in 9 blue states, and 1 red state. This stat seems to suggest red-state residents (those states that voted for Romney in the last election) tend to be bigger fans of their Governors (whether they be Democrats or Republicans) than blue state residents.

Moderate voters skew HEAVILY Democratic in PPP's 2016 polling

Map of 2012/2008 election results among MODERATE voters only. Exit polling was only conducted in 32 states in 2012. In the 18 states where there was no survey, 2008 exit poll results were used. Red = Republican, Blue = Democrat, Green = TIE

I consider myself to be pretty moderate on a number of policy issues, mostly social: abortion, immigration, gay marriage, the death penalty, separation of church and state. But if I were asked by an exit pollster my "ideology" on a scale of very conservative, somewhat conservative, moderate, liberal, or very liberal, I'd probably put myself in the somewhat conservative side of things. My views on taxation and the role of government in the economy shove me to the right. But there's a significant portion of the country that identifies their political ideology as "moderate" (41% to be exact). Who are these so-called "moderate voters" that typically make up the plurality of the presidential electorate, and how do they vote? Even more importantly, how will they vote in 2016?

If early Public Policy Polling surveys on 2016 are any indicator, Republicans will be STOMPED by Democrats among "moderates." In fact, the GOP is poised to win the LEAST amount of so-called "moderate voters" ever (or at least since exit polling began in 1976), especially if Hillary Clinton is their nominee. The chart below documents the moderate vote for Hillary Clinton vs. any GOP opponent in every national or state 2016 poll conducted by PPP over the last month. Unfortunately, the very few polling firms besides PPP that have already started surveying the 2016 race did not provide crosstabs for ideological breakdown. So the focus will be on PPP's results:

If you operate under the assumption that Conservatives vote Republican, Liberals vote Democrat, and Moderates split their vote, you'd be wrong, according to PPP...dead wrong. Hillary Clinton leads Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Newt Gingrich, and Scott Walker among moderates in every state & nat'l poll over the last month, by MASSIVE margins. In fact, the best that any Republican is able to do against Hillary among moderates is Paul Ryan's 57-32% deficit in the state of Pennsylvania. But even then, Hillary leads by 25 points. The WORST any Republican does with moderates is Marco Rubio in Michigan AND his home-state of Florida. Hillary leads him with moderate voters in both states, 65-16% and 71-23% respectively. That's border-line embarrassing for Rubio. To make it worse, Hillary has averaged a 63-25% lead over Republicans with moderates in PPP polling over the last month.

Presidential election results by congressional district.

Pic of 2008 Presidential election results by district. Courtesy of CQ Politics, 2009.

Cook Political Report editor David Wasserman recently tweeted the following:

In my estimation, if every state awarded Electoral votes by Congressional district (a la ME & NE), Romney would have won, 276-262.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 13, 2012

Of course, what David is referring to is the "congressional district method" of awarding electoral college votes. Forty-eight of the fifty states award their electoral votes based on the winner of their state at-large. Maine and Nebraska award delegates according to the winner of each individual congressional district, awarding two bonus electoral votes to the statewide popular vote winner.

Wasserman's tweet struck me as intriguing given that Romney lost the national popular vote by a fair margin of 3.7 points. How could this be?

The most obvious answer is gerrymandering, the process by which political parties manipulate geographic congressional boundaries for political gain. But the bizarre result still had me wondering how the gerrymandering process would have effected presidential results throughout history, in the event all 50 states adopted the Maine/Nebraska EV rule.

Below is a chart comparing actual electoral college votes to what the vote would have been had all states adopted the Nebraska/Maine method of apportioning electoral votes:

North Carolina: Net Change in Obama's margin against GOP, 2008-2012, county-by-county

Net change of 0 - 2% = light pink               Net Change of 0 - 2% = very light blue
                   2.01 - 4% = pink                                          2.01 - 4% = light blue
                   4.01 - 6% = red                                            4.01 - 6% = blue
                   6.01 - 8% = dark red                                    6.01 - 8% = dark blue
                   8.01% + = very dark red                              8.01% + = very dark blue

Above is a county-by-county map of North Carolina, shaded to represent where President Obama experienced his largest net percentage margin gain & losses against his Republican contender from 2008 to 2012. The red counties are the counties where Obama did worse against Romney than he did against McCain. Likewise, the blue counties are the counties where Obama performed STRONGER against Romney than he did against McCain. The lighter the shade of red or blue, the slighter the difference in the net margins between Obama & his opponent from '08 to '12. The darker shades of red or blue represent where Obama/GOP saw their largest gains from 2008 to 2012.

2012 Youth Vote: Anomaly or permanent Democratic voting bloc?

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In 2008, election watchers were surprised when voters under age 30 turned out in record breaking numbers to support Barack Obama's first presidential bid (by record breaking margins, as well). But they were down right aghast when Team Obama, despite an abundance of polling data indicating youth enthusiasm was down, managed to increase turnout amongst this historically unreliable voting block. But is this voting block on a consistent rise in the same way white voters have been on a consistent decline? Are 18-29-year-olds a permanent constituency of the Democrats, or does history suggest there's a path for GOP inroads?

18-29 yr-old voting patters, 1976-2012

ELECTION 2012: State-by-state changes in party I.D.

 
While national partisan identification may have shifted 1 point from the 2008 election to the 2012 election, that spread wasn't consistent everywhere. Some states saw larger shifts than others, usually in favor of the Republicans, but certainly not always. Nationally, 38% of voters identified as Democrats (down 1 pt from 2008), 32% identified as Republicans (same as 2008), and 29% identified as Independent (also, same as 2008).

Below is a chart showing the shift in national party ID per state since 2008. Note that some states are missing due to the "National Election Pool's" decision to cut back on exit polling in 2012 as a cost saving measure. As a result, on 31 states featured exit poll results, as opposed to all 50 states in 2008.

How Exit Polls changed as election night wore on

One interesting feature of the 2012 general election is the fact that historically unreliable EARLY exit poll data actually proved to be more favorable to Romney than Obama, going against the popular notion that early numbers tend to favor Democrats. Several metrics, ranging from Party ID, to views of government, to race/ethnicity showed  more promising numbers for Romney earlier in the night, only to magically change as more and more returns were actually counted.

For example, just two hours before the first polls closed on the East Coast, politico reporter Jamie Dupree tweeted the following:  

"41% say the government should do more - 53% say the government is doing too much; it was flipped 51-43 in 2008"

But by the time the night was over, that 12 point lead for those thinking the government is doing TOO much had dwindled to just an 8 point, 51-43% lead.

Jon Karl of ABC News also provided some flawed preliminary exit poll data. See these tweets from just before 6 pm E.S.T., election night 2012:

"In two ABC prelim exit polls, Romney slightly edges Obama on handling of the economy and the deficit (51-47 and 50-46 percent)"

"In our ABC preliminary exit poll, voters give Obama the edge over Romney on who is more in touch with them (52-44)"

 What were the actual numbers? In the end, Romney's edge over Obama on the economy and deficit was NOT the 4 points early exit data indicated. In fact, it wound up being just 1 point, 49-48%, and just 2 points on the budget deficit (49-47%). Meanwhile, the number who felt the President was more in touch with them than Romney grew from an 8 point deficit to a ten point deficit (53-43% for Obama).

The difference between early, preliminary exit poll data, and the final result was evident in several other places, but perhaps none more consequential than partisan identification. At about 6:05pm, E.S.T., one hour before the first polls closed on the East Coast, CNN provided viewers with (and I tweeted) the preliminary Party ID data:

2016 Not Looking Any Better for Republicans

Days before the polls closed on November 6, 2012, the Obama team was predicting publicly that the electorate would be less white than in 2008, and they were right. Their argument went like this:

"Since the campaign began, Team Obama has assumed that whites would make up 72% of voters, down from 74% in 2008. (The logic: This percentage has decreased in every U.S. election, and the minority population continues to grow.) On the other hand, Republicans counter that due to greater GOP enthusiasm, the white percentage could very well stay the same as in 2008 -- or even be a tick higher. And according to our NBC/WSJ pollsters, the final outcome here could sway the election. If you assume that both sides maximize their margins (Romney wins whites by 20 percentage points and Obama wins minority voters by 60 percentage points), whites making up 75% of the electorate would give Romney the edge with the popular vote by a fraction of a point. But if the white percentage is 74%, Obama would win the popular vote by a fraction of a point. And if it’s 73%, Obama wins by one point. Bottom line: Watch the white percentage in tomorrow night’s exit polls; it will tell you more about where Virginia or Iowa or Colorado or Wisconsin will go." 

Seems awfully prophetic in retrospect.

A look at 2012 Demographics

Myself and others speculated that if the GOP won white voters by about 20 points or more, that would offset any gains for Democrats from white turnout being held at 2008 levels (when they made up 74% of the electorate). And indeed, Romney performed much better among white voters than John McCain four years earlier, winning the largest voting block 59-39%. McCain only carried the group by 12%.

But what many did not count on (myself included) was a full 2% drop in the number of white voters in the electorate. That, coupled with 2008-like African American turnout, increased Latino turnout, and a stronger Obama margin with Latinos led to Romney's demise.