Once Thought Vulernable, Nikki Haley Looks Poised For A Big Win – But There’s A Caveat…

Photo courtesy of the A.P.

There was a time when South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley looked like she would have serious trouble in her bid for reelection, even as recently as this June.

Her problem was multipronged. First, she was never elected by an overwhelming mandate to begin with, kind of stumbling across the finish line in 2010 with an anti-climactic 51-47% victory during an incredibly favorable election cycle. That somewhat meek level of support transferred over into Haley's job approval ratings. Then came her frequent quarrels with the South Carolina legislature, a feature of her tenure which began early on after announcing she would be issuing "report cards" to S.C. lawmakers on criteria determined by her, and culminated in the summer of 2012 when the Republican legislature overrode a number of Haley's budget vetoes.

And of course, who can forget the proverbial cherry-on-top of her first two years in office - the hacking of four million South Carolinian's social security numbers.

All of those missteps aside, more recent events would tend to suggest that Haley is going to weather the storm.

Not long ago, Haley took the opportunity to barnstorm the state, bragging about future business investments that are expected to bring lots of job creation to South Carolina. Couple that with a steady unemployment rate decline from 10.5% upon taking office in January 2011, to 6.4% as of September, and a smoothly handled Senate confirmation process for the newly appointed (and popular) Sen. Tim Scott, Haley seems back in the game.

And polling bears that out.

A base that once appeared unsure of Haley from a polling perspective, has returned home in full. Republicans aren't the only ones to take note of Haley's accomplishments. Her job approval rating with ALL South Carolinians is the highest its ever been. Sixty-two percent of likely voters say the state's economic condition is getting better, versus just thirty percent who say it's getting worse.

Then come the head-to-head numbers, which seem to look better everyday. After starting out trailing her Democratic challenger Vincent Sheheen in a 2012 poll, she's been ahead in every survey since. She's ahead by double-digits in practically all of the non-Democratic Party affiliated polls of likely voters. Gov. Haley leads 49-37% in the Ace Of Spades Decision Desk average, leads 50-38% in the Huffington Post Pollster average, and leads 50-37% in the Real Clear Politics average.

Gov. Nikki Haley looks strong in SC-1, But Not As Strong As In November 2010

Gov. Haley (R - SC), 2nd from left, pictured with staff for Vogue photo-shoot in 2012. Photo courtesy of Norman Jean Roy & Vogue.

In all the hysteria surrounding the circus that was the South Carolina First Congressional Special Election, a little-noticed poll finding from PPP's now infamous "Colbert-Busch surging" April survey surely got the attention of both Gov. Nikki Haley and her likely 2014 opponent State Senator Vincent Sheheen (D).

In the same poll where PPP found Elizabeth Colbert-Busch with a 9 point lead over Mark Sanford, Gov. Nikki Haley led  Sheheen by a margin of 44-38%; much smaller than the margin by which Mitt Romney carried the first district in 2012 (58-40%), and indeed, smaller than the margin Mark Sanford eventually won the district (54-45%).

Not only that, her 44-38% lead over Sheheen in a heavily Republican district represents quite the deterioration in her support since election night 2010.

Unfortunately for researchers, determining Haley's support in the 2010 Governor's race by congressional district is NOT easy. For starters, the boundaries of District 1 were entirely different when Haley was first elected in November 2010. And to make things MORE difficult, South Carolina does not provide gubernatorial results by congressional district (because SC districts rarely follow actual county borders). But thanks to Harry Enten of The Guardian and the South Carolina Election Commission, I was able to track down the Haley v. Sheheen results in every precinct that makes up the CURRENT District 1. Through that research, it was determined that Nikki Haley defeated Vincent Sheheen for Governor in CURRENT-DAY SC-1 by a margin of  58-40% (the same margin by which Romney carried the district against Obama). See the table below for South Carolina Governor Results in EACH county that is at least partially contained within the 1st district: (for a complete tabulation of the 2010 Governor votes in each 1st congressional district precinct, go here.)

Now you can see why 44-38% in a district she carried by 18 points bodes very poorly for Haley, especially considering that her overall winning margin in 2010 was just four points, or 51-47%.

But not so fast. Wasn't that April PPP poll widely canned in the aftermath of the SC-1 election? Remember, that poll that showed a wild fluctuation to a very Democratic friendly electorate for one survey, before returning back to it's nearly identical electorate from before in the final poll?

If you agree with The New Republic's Nate Cohn and The Guardian's Harry J. Enten's take on tha April "Colbert-Busch surging" poll from PPP, then Nikki Haley can take solace in the fact that she's likely doing a bit better in SC-1 than a 44-38% lead over her Democratic challenger.

To see exactly how well she COULD BE DOING, let's simply reweight the April PPP racial I.D. numbers and ideological I.D. numbers to the two survey findings that fell more in line with the 2012 SC-1 presidential electorate (their 1st and final SC-1 poll).

The chart below takes a look at how Nikki Haley's numbers would have looked against Vincent Sheheen in the 1st District had the racial identification of the respondents looked like PPP's March and May surveys:

As you can see, Governor Haley would've had as much as a 9 point lead over Sheheen (44-35%) had PPP found an SC-1 electorate like they had in March.

The Roller Coaster Electorate - A Guide to PPP's South Carolina Special Election Polling

Photo courtesy of rawstory.com

Last night, reputable polling firm Public Policy Polling (D) had one of their worst misses in months, while newcomer Red Racing Horses did little to advance their stature.

They were the only two polling firms to release public surveys on the South Carolina 1st Congressional District special election between Mark Sanford (R) and Elizabeth Colbert-Busch (D). And neither was able to see that the infamous "Appalachain Trail" Governor was about to make a triumphant landslide return to Congress.

To be fair, it wasn't an easy outcome to predict given Sanford's luck over the last three weeks.  He was abandoned by the national Republican Party, he was competing against a pseudo-celebrity challenger, he was being outspent 5-1, and embarrassing details about his divorce to Jenny Sanford were hitting the press.

Nonetheless, The Guardian's Harry J. Enten has a great post-mortem on the pollster failings in this race, specifically PPP's 2-week old finding of Colbert-Busch leading Sanford by 9 points, which as Enten notes, has the dubious distinction of being one of the worst polls taken in any special election since 2004.

Enten's piece, as well as a twitter debate between The New Republic's Nate Cohn and a Daily Kos tweeter, prompted me to take a closer look at the shifting electorate reported by PPP over the three polls and six weeks they surveyed this special election. 

As the chart below indicates, as brief as it was, the SC-1 special election was somewhat of a roller-coaster ride according to PPP, in terms of both who led the race and who PPP expected to comprise the electorate:

The race started in late-March with the Democrat at a very, very small advantage, which was unusual considering the partisan leanings of the 1st District, as well as the fact that PPP poll respondents looked awfully similar to the 2012 presidential electorate; they supported Romney over Obama by 56-40% (similar to the actual 58-40% margin), conservatives greatly outnumbered moderates and liberals by a 2-1 margin, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 15%, and African Americans only made up 12% of the electorate.

Nikki Haley in REAL Trouble in South Carolina Re-election Bid

For a time in 2010, Nikki Haley's star was one of the brightest in the GOP. She was another beautiful, articulate, but most importantly, conservative female rising through the ranks to become her state's top executive. She received early endorsements from party figure-heads like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. She won the Republican's gubernatorial primary, avoiding a run-off by just 1% in a crowded field, only to win the run-off 51-35%. South Carolinians appeared to genuinely like Haley, despite her surprisingly close 51-47% finish in the 2010 Governor's race, a year when Republicans made huge gains across the country. But then there were issues involving marriage infidelity, claims that she was too focused on the national spotlight, and most recently, a huge state-wide hacking scandal. A new Public Policy Polling survey confirms the SC public has taken note of her missteps: