#NCSEN It’s Over: PPP & The Shih-Tzu anoint Senator Thom
John Frank says we might as well forget this primary thing. Thom Tillis is leaving everybody in the dust with his “solid lead.”
If you are a supporter of one of the other US Senate GOP candidates, reading The Shih-Tzu’s article might leave you a little down. Me — I like to look at a poll’s details.
Public Policy Polling’s survey has head-to-head standings that look like this for the GOP field: Tillis 19%, Brannon 11%, Grant 11%, Harris 8%, Flynn 7%. There is a margin of error of +/- 4.1% for the GOP primary. If you add up the vote percentages for the five candidates — That’s 56 percent. So, undecided and NO opinion are at 44 percent. Take that 44 percent, and the MOE, and Tillis’ 8 point “lead” is pretty much meaningless.
Roughly 75 percent of respondents were Unsure about Tillis’ four GOP opponents. A total of 57 percent had the same sentiment about Speaker Thom. You’re one of state government’s highest ranking officials. You’ve spent $300,000 on TV ads and you’ve still got 57 percent Not Sure?
The poll makes it clear that the entire GOP field has some work to do on name ID. But who — outside of Greensboro and Jones Street — really knew anything about state senator Kay Hagan prior to May 2008?
The head-to-heads vs. Hagan for each GOP candidate were interesting. (There’s a +/- 2.6 percent MOE here.) Each candidate had a 1-2 point lead over Hagan. Each head-to-head with Hagan showed a 15 to 17 percent UNDECIDED vote — clearly a bad sign for Hagan. Undecideds almost always break to the challenger.
Partisan info for the poll’s respondents was also very interesting. They were split evenly 47%-47% between Obama and Romney in 2012. (Romney won the state 51-48 in 2012.) Also, 43 percent of respondents identify themselves as Democrats. I would think these two factors would have a mighty hinky effect on polling for a GOP primary.
(Also, it appears that 14 percent of the respondents submitted their answers via the Internet ???? I am *sure* that no 9 year olds playing on dad’s iPad participated.)
The shih-tzu and the other media types panting for a Tillis v. Hagan match-up can twist and spin this as hard as they want to. In reality, if this poll has any substantive credibility, here is what it all says: Tillis has more name ID than the rest of the GOP field. (He also has the highest unfavorable rating in the GOP field.) But ANY of the five would be very competitive in a general election match-up with Hagan. It tells me there’s more of a desire out there to evict Kay Hagan from DC than any groundswell for Speaker Thom.
I think things are just starting to get interesting. Four months and counting …
A poll where nearly half the participants cannot vote in the primary because they are members of other parties is not only meaningless. It is either incompetent of a pollster to put out such drivel or it is an indication that they are putting their thumb on the scales.
If those numbers were real, they would be highly indicative of a runoff. Given the number of candidates, that is very likely what we will have, and the one that gets into it with Tillis will beat Tillis in the runoff.
Or put another way, its a Public Policy Polling “poll”!!! Enough said.
If you actually read through the poll you will see that the only people who were asked questions specifically on the primary stated earlier in the poll that they were Republicans.
I think it is also interesting that Tillis got the highest marks BY FAR from “Very Conservative” & “Somewhat Conservative” self identified voters. It appears as though the conservative voters of NC actually like the tax cuts, voter ID, regulation reform, medical malpractice reform, expanded 2nd amendment rights, stricter abortion clinic regulations, and the marriage amendment bills the Tillis led house passed.
Voter ID? Tilli$ tried to water that down. He also watered down, or tried to, all of the other things you mention. Tilli$ also blocked reform of our anti-consumer Renewable Energy Mandate, supported drivers licenses for illegal aliens, and rammed through a provision gutting e-Verify, which stops hiring of illegal aliens, in North Carolina. Even worse, Tilli$ told the Farm Bureau that he supports a ”pathway to citizenship”, otherwise known as amnesty, for illegal aliens.
Once the campaigns get in gear, and voters can be educated about Tilli$’ horrible record, he will be defeated.
Little do they know that Tillis had to be dragged kicking and screaming on things like voter ID and 2nd amendment bills. The bill Tillis put out was crap. It was the Senate that had the good voter ID bill that ended up being the final bill.
If we in NC vote Tillis to be “our guy” then we deserve what we get. No one in the state thought a censure could get passed against Senator Richard Burr through any GOP conventions in NC after he voted to debate our gun rights either, but I not only got a censure passed I fought hard and got Burr censured through a congressional district convention that led to another district passing a censure as well as other NC counties. So don’t listen to retarded negativity, folks in NC get things it just takes some time and Tillis not showing up for debates (as he can’t debate away what he factually has done and not done in office) is eating at his lead day by day along with facts coming out daily about his political dealings for “big corporate business”. This thing hasn’t even got started yet and the establishment corporate big business propaganda would have us all think it’s over? I say poppy cock, and I know a thing or two about politics and elections folks.
Your point about Tillis not showing up for candidate forums is interesting. One begins to think that if he’s out of touch now, just wait until he’s given a six year job.
He always shows up for the special interests, but never for the average GOP voter in North Carolina. Who do you think he would represent in the US Senate? We need to fight to be sure we nominate someone else.