White House 2012 Presidential Staw Poll Shows Significant Trends and Many Surprises

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Kempite

In White House 2012s first national Republican presidential straw pollin consideration of two dozen still possible presidential contenders, there were clear winners and clear losers with the front of the pack far out-distancing themselves from the back of the pack. In all, 232 votes were counted. 82 more votes were disqualified for voting for the candidate of their choice as both their first and second choice. In the end, the big winners were Mitt Romney and Mitch Daniels who tied with 14.2%, followed by Donald Trump with 9.5% and Sarah Palin and Ron Paul tied each at 6.9%. (see results below)

1 .-Mitch Daniels /Mitt Romney – 14.2%
3 .-Donald Trump – 9.5%
5.-SarahPalin / Ron Paul- 6.9%
7 .-Newt Gingrich /Mike Huckabee / Tim Pawlenty- 6.5%
9 .- Haley Barbour / Gary Johnson – 5.2%
11.-Herman Cain – 4.7%
12.-Rick Santorum – 2.6%
13.-Fred Karger – 2.2%
14.- Bachmann / Bolton / Giuliani / Huntsman – 1.7%
18.- Rand Paul – o.9%
19.- Moore/ Pataki / Riley – 0.2%
22.-Perry /Petraeus/ Romer – 0.0%

But the White House 2012 Straw Poll did not just ask who voter’s first choice was. In additionto asking where they stand on the ideological spectrum, we asked them for the region of the nation they resided and vote in, and for who their second choice for the Republican presidential nomination is. This allowed us to break the results of this poll down in many different ways.

As for the position of those who were the second choice, as you see below,Daniels came in first, followed by Romney, with a surprise third place showing for Michele Bachmann then Tim Pawlentyin 4th, and Ron Paul in 5th. Let’s break down the results.

1 . -Mitch Daniels – 11.2%
2 .-Mitt Romney – 9.2%
3 .-MicheleBachmann/ Tim Pawlenty – 8.6%
5 .- Rand Paul – 6.9%
6. Mike Huckabe/ Sarah Pailin / Ron Paul – 6.5%
9 .-Rudy Giuliani /Donald Trump – 4.3%
11.-Haley Barbour / Newt Gingrich – 3.9%
13.-Jon Humtsman, Jr. – 3.4%
14.-Herman Cain / Rick Perry / Rick Santorum- 3.0%
17.-Gen. David Petraeus – 2.6%
18.-Gary Johnson – 2.2%
19.-John Bolton / Fred Karger – 0.9%
21.-Roy Moore / George Pataki – 0.2%
23.-Bob Riely / Buddy Roemer – 0%

Observations

From this poll several things are quite clear. First, the G.O.P. base remains strongly ensconcedin conservative hands. 69% of all respondents described themselves as conservative while 26.7% consider themselves moderateand a mere 4.3% describe themselvesas liberal Republicans. While the greatest percentage of liberal Republicans came out of the densely populated Northeast, the least conservative portion of the nation seems to hail from the West where only 51.4% describe themselves as conservative, while in the Northeast 69.4% consider themselves conservative. The most conservative region of the nation remains the Southeast. Here 5.8% are liberal Republicans, 9.6% are moderate and a whopping 84.6% call themselves conservative Republicans.

See the ideological breakdown by region here

Frontrunners

This poll shows that Mitt Romney, and if he runs, Mitch Daniels, are the clear frontrunners.It also shows that while Romney supporters can easily be persuaded to move to Daniels’ way, Daniels supporters are not so quick to support Mitt Romney. However both of these camps do find Tim Pawlenty to be a proper alternative to one or the other.

By Region

The region with the most respondents was the Northeast with 26.7%, followed by the Southeast and the Midwest, each with 22.4% of the vote and the West with 15.1%oand the Southwest with 13.4%. MitchDaniels fared strongest in the Midwest and the Northeast and Mitt Romney held his own in mostregions.But there are some surprising shows of strength by Trump in the Southeast and West.The West also happens to be whereSarah Palin seems to have her greatest strength.

Probably the most notable trends in this poll comes from the Southeast and Midwest.

In the Southeast, while Trump and Gingrichtie for first place, it is quite obvious that Mitt Romney remains competitive.The poll also shows thatMitch Danielshas a lot of work to do, and that Southern favorites like Arkansas’ Huckabee, Missisissippi’s Barbour, and Georgia’s Herman Cain and Newt Ginrich, arecurrently dividing the South and dilutingany significant favorite soneffect from the region. This could be good news for Mitt Romney. If Donald Trumpdoes not get in the way, the crowded field of Southerners competing against one another could allow Mitt Romney todo far better in the South than some expect. For Mitt that is important because the South is the worst region for him.

In the Midwest, Mitch Daniels is quite strong. So strong that even though he has not even begun to assemble a campaign together, he is beating Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty substantially. That is despite the fact that Pawlenty is a former popular Governor of a Midwest state and has been campaigning aggressively. But as in the South, there is an overcrowding ofevangelically appealing candidates, such as Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabeee. This overcrowding is helping to divide the Evangelical vote in Midwest states like Iowa. As a result, Mitch Daniels is riding high in the region andas is the case inthe South, Mitt Romney finds himself an opening.

For a detailed breakdown of how the contenders fared by each region, visit here.

The Trump Card

Donald Trump is on a rolland while many are reluctant about just how big a role he actually intends to play in the presidential race, he will be a significant factor in the Republican presidential nomination contest and can not be written off or discounted. Even if Trump does not end up running, his endorsement and his role as asurrogate for the Republican ticket will go far for the eventual nominee. At the moment though, Donald Trump seems to hurt two candidates the most: Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Apparently Donald Trump’s anti-establishment appeal eats in to that same appeal that Paul and Palin have. Of the establishment candidates, Trump hurts Mitt Romney the most.

Who Gets Whose Support

Clearly Mitt Romney and Mitch Daniels were thefirst choices of moststraw poll voters. But the question of who is your second choice helped us toestablish crosstabsthatshowed where Mitt Romney’s and Mitch Daniel’s support goes, as well as that of all the other contenders, if they back out of the race orat some point, bow out of it. If Mitch Daniels doesn’t run, the clear beneficiary will beMinnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty who would pick up 21.2% of his votes.Thecandidate to benefit the next best,is Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour who gains 15.2% of Daniels’ votes, followed by John Huntsman, Jr. with 12.1% of all of Daniels supporters. Behind them,Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney pick up 9.1% of Mitch Daniels’ supporters. Even though Tim Pawlenty picks up the largest number of votes from Daniels, he does not receive enough to catapult into first place. He does however still benefit the most by jumping from seventh place, all the way tothird place. But Mitt Romney comes out on top.

So without Daniels in the race, the front of the pack would looks like this:

Romney – 15.5%
Trump – 9.9%
Pawlenty – 9.5%
Palin – 8.22%
Haley Barbour / Ron Paul – 7.3%

Now if you take Romney out of the contest, Mitch Daniels is the man who benefits most. With Romney out, Daniels picks up 21.2% of his support giving him a commanding 7.0% lead over Donald Trump who comes in second with 10.3% and the man who benefits the second most is Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty receives15.25% of Romney’s votes and again pullsin to third place with 8.6%. The bulk of the rest of Romney’s support goes to Bachmann, Giuliani, and Huckabee who each get approximately 9.0% of Romney’s vote. Making the race look like this:

Daniels – 17.2%
Trump – 10.3%
Pawlenty – 8.6%
Huckabee – 7.7%
Gingrich – 6.9%
Barbour / Johnson -5.6%

Asfor Donald Trump, the wildcard in this race, this poll was taken over the last two weeks. This was a period in time when Trump was in the midst of a presidential speculation media blitz, so this poll indicates understandablyhigh name recognition for himand consistently ranks Trumpeither second or third in the survey. In the very likely event that Trump does not run, where does his support go? Interestingly, the vast numbers of his supporters were divided among many of the potential contenders, but the largest portion of Trump votes to go anywhere, went to Sarah Palin (13.6%), and Ron Paul (18.2) . At the same time, if Trump does not run, Romney gets an edge, and by a small lead pulls ahead of Mitch Daniels in this poll. Thereby making the race look like this:

Romney – 14.6%
Daniels – 14.2%
Ron Paul – 8.6%
Palin – 8.1%
Huckabee – 7.3%
Gingrich – 6.8%
Barbour / Cain – 5.6%

Asto how the voting broke down according to ideology, the sampling of those who called themselves liberal Republicans was too small to accurately measure any trends. But among those who are self-describedmoderate Republicans and conservative Republicans, it broke down as follows:

Among Moderates

1 . – Donald Trump – 16.%
2 . – Mitch Daniels – 14.5%
3 . – Mitt Romney – 12.9%
4. – Huckabee / Pawlenty – 8.1%
6. – Gary Johnson – 6.5%
7. – Cain / Huntsman / Karger – 4.8%
10. – Haley Barbour – 3.2%

Among Conservatives

1 . – Daniels/Romney – 15%
3 . – Sarah Palin – 8.8%
4 . – Newt Gingrich – 8.1%
5 . – Donald Trump – 6.9%
6 . – Barbour/ Huckabee/Ron Paul/ Pawlenty – 6.3%
10.- Herman Cain – 5%

While this poll is only a brief snapshot of the way things stand at the moment, this survey provides the basis for Whitehouse 2012 establishing Mitt Romney as a frontrunner. Until Mitch Daniels makes up his mind about whether or not to run for President, this game is Mitt’s to lose. If Mitch Daniels does run, the race is between the two of them and is a tossup. No one is written off by this poll though. Newt Gingrich shows some strength.So does Tim Palwenty and Sarah Palin. Donald Trump is certainly going tot be a significant player if he decides to run. From what we can tell, Trump takes a chunk of support away from the two most anti-establishment candidates in the race……..Sarah Palin and Ron Paul. So it will be extremely interesting to see how that plays out, especially in the case of Palin who I am more than confident can put The Donald in his place.