Survey USA with some interesting "head to heads"

Survey USA has been studying some states in play for the upcoming Presidential cycle. They discovered that in many cases the "third place" Dem fares best against any of the top three Pubs and especially Romney.

Many thanks to Bruin Kid of the Daily KOs for this rundown.


SurveyUSA finally came out with a new batch of state polls where they didn't just ask about Hillary Clinton, but about all three Democratic frontrunners, matched up against Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney. They did not test John McCain, and given his Q3 numbers so far, that may have been for a reason. Finally, we can do a candidate comparison. The national comparison jamess did earlier this month was useful, but since the election is decided state by state, and not by national vote, these are much more informative.

The states surveyed were Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky, and Alabama. Other than Ohio, these are all very deep red states when it came to electing Bush. What happens in 2008?

Follow me below the fold for the amazing general election match-up numbers.

BruinKid's diary :: ::
For each GOP candidate, in the margin column I've bolded the race that would give us the best margin of victory, or at least the closest race when all our candidates would lose. Remember, Democrats aren't even supposed to be competitive in some of these states.

Ohio:

GENERAL ELECTION MATCH-UPS

Democrat Republican Margin

Clinton 47% Giuliani 48% Lose by 1%
Obama 39% Giuliani 52% Lose by 13%
Edwards 47% Giuliani 48% Lose by 1%

Clinton 48% Thompson 47% Win by 1%
Obama 42% Thompson 50% Lose by 8%
Edwards 52% Thompson 43% Win by 9%

Clinton 52% Romney 42% Win by 10%
Obama 45% Romney 46% Lose by 1%
Edwards 56% Romney 36% Win by 20%

While everyone would lose to Rudy, the margins for Edwards against Thompson and Romney are amazing. He's well outside the margin of error in victory in those match-ups. Interesting that both he and Hillary would barely lose to Rudy 48%-47% here, but when matched up against Thompson or Romney, Edwards' leads over them are significantly greater than Hillary's leads over them.

Kansas:

GENERAL ELECTION MATCH-UPS

Democrat Republican Margin

Clinton 40% Giuliani 52% Lose by 12%
Obama 40% Giuliani 51% Lose by 11%
Edwards 40% Giuliani 50% Lose by 10%

Clinton 40% Thompson 53% Lose by 13%
Obama 40% Thompson 50% Lose by 10%
Edwards 39% Thompson 46% Lose by 7%

Clinton 46% Romney 45% Win by 1%
Obama 47% Romney 41% Win by 6%
Edwards 48% Romney 34% Win by 14%

Democrats all have a very rough time in Kansas. Unless Mitt Romney is the candidate. Again, Edwards would crush Romney by double digits, when usually it's the Democrat that would lose by double digits here.

Kentucky:

GENERAL ELECTION MATCH-UPS

Democrat Republican Margin

Clinton 41% Giuliani 51% Lose by 10%
Obama 36% Giuliani 54% Lose by 18%
Edwards 43% Giuliani 50% Lose by 7%

Clinton 45% Thompson 50% Lose by 5%
Obama 37% Thompson 54% Lose by 17%
Edwards 45% Thompson 44% Win by 1%

Clinton 46% Romney 46% Tie
Obama 43% Romney 45% Lose by 2%
Edwards 48% Romney 38% Win by 10%

This state is not kind to Obama. Hillary doesn't fare too well either. Again, the only sizable win for a Democrat is when Edwards is pitted against Romney.

Alabama:

GENERAL ELECTION MATCH-UPS

Democrat Republican Margin

Clinton 41% Giuliani 52% Lose by 11%
Obama 32% Giuliani 59% Lose by 27%
Edwards 40% Giuliani 50% Lose by 10%

Clinton 41% Thompson 54% Lose by 13%
Obama 34% Thompson 60% Lose by 26%
Edwards 38% Thompson 50% Lose by 12%

Clinton 45% Romney 46% Lose by 1%
Obama 36% Romney 53% Lose by 17%
Edwards 45% Romney 39% Win by 6%

The only way we're winning Alabama is if Edwards is pitted against Romney. Otherwise, we can probably write it off. But hey, it is Alabama, after all. If we're actually competitive in Alabama, I don't think we have to worry too much about winning the Presidency. It would then be a matter of how big the electoral vote rout would be.
So, the latest batch of SurveyUSA polls show that time after time again, Edwards performs best out of the three frontrunners in the head-to-head match-ups against the GOP frontrunners (sans McCain). And these differences cannot really be attributed to name recognition; Gallup showed that all three Democratic frontrunners have pretty high name recognition, though Hillary's is the highest. But Edwards and Obama are pretty much tied in name recognition.

Yes, these polls are just a snapshot in time, and things can change, but right now, it does seem there is a noticeable gap between Edwards and Hillary and Obama when it comes to who can win these states, or at least make them close races.

So in the final tally, when comparing one of the 12 match-ups against each of our frontrunners, how many would we win?

John Edwards: win 6, lose 6 Hillary Clinton: win 3, lose 8, tie 1 Barack Obama: win 1, lose 11
So, with these new numbers, let the "electability" arguments flare up once more.

Since BK did his post, Survey USA moved on to New Mexico. Lets see how that looks:

Democrat Republican Margin

Clinton 51% Giuliani 43% Wins by 8%
Obama 46% Giuliani 46% Tie
Edwards 48% Giuliani 44% Wins by 4%

Some of this may be due to Bill Richardson being the presumptive running mate for Hilary. Didn't they tell you, Evan?

Clinton 53 % Thompson 42 % Wins by 11%
Obama 52% Thompson 41 % Wins by 11%
Edwards 52% Thompson 37% Wins by 15%

Clinton 54 % Romney 39 % Wins by 15%
Obama 55% Romney 36% Wins by 19%
Edwards 54% Romney 34% Wins by 20%

A few stray thoughts....

Though Obama does better here, his campaign should be a bit concerned about how his overall general election numbers are shaping up.

If the Pubs want Hilary for an opponent, then the Dems should want Mitt.

And there's an interesting trend that within the states, the Pub candidate generally becomes less popular when pitted against Edwards.

Things that make you go "Hmmm..."