Statistikhengst
Diamond Member
- Banned
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Yepp, that would be the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The conventional wisdom is that a GOP wave should build for the Fall in the 2014 mid-terms. We are not seeing that happen in Pennsylvania. Actually, we are seeing the opposite happen, for 2014 and beyond.
In the Pennsylvania Gubernatorial, Republican incumbent Tom Corbett is losing very, very badly in polling. In the last 7 days, 3 independent-from-each-other pollsters have shown Democratic challenger Tom Wolf to be ahead by at least 20 points:
RealClearPolitics - Election 2014 - Pennsylvania Governor - Corbett vs. Wolf
Rasmussen:
Wolf 51 / Corbett 31 - margin: Wolf +20
PPP (D)
Wolf 55 / Corbett 30 - margin: Wolf +25
Quinnipiac
Wolf 53 / Corbett 33 - margin: Wolf +20
Current average: Wolf +21.7
Now, this doesn't mean there can or will be no GOP wave in the Fall. If electoral history is our guide, there SHOULD be one, but even in a wave, there can be one or two states that go strongly against the grain, and that may indeed be the case with Pennsylvania.
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Two independent-from-each-other Presidential polls for 2016 also came out, and the results look exceedingly grim for the GOP if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.
Quinnipiac - and- PPP (D), both released on June 5, 2014
I am going to place the values next to each other, for easier comparison.
Hillary vs. Christie:
Q'piac: Clinton 45 / Christie 41 - margin: Clinton +4
PPP (D): Clinton 49 / Christie 39 - margin: Clinton +10
Margin Average: Clinton +7
Margin differential, Q'piac to PPP: 6 points
Hillary vs. Santorum:
Q'piac: no Cruz matchup
PPP (D): Clinton 51 / Santorum 40 - margin: Clinton +11
Margin Average: -not possible to gauge-
Margin differential, Q'piac to PPP: -not possible to gauge-
Hillary vs. Ryan:
Q'piac: Clinton 50 / Ryan 38 - margin: Clinton +12
PPP (D): -no Ryan matchup-
Margin Average: -not possible to gauge-
Margin differential, Q'piac to PPP: -not possible to gauge-
Hillary vs. Paul:
Q'piac: Clinton 51 / Paul 37 - margin: Clinton +14
PPP (D): Clinton 52 / Paul 38 - margin: Clinton +14
Margin Average: Clinton +14
Margin differential, Q'piac to PPP: 0 points
Hillary vs. Bush, J.:
Q'piac: Clinton 51 / Bush, J. 35 - margin: Clinton +16
PPP (D): Clinton 51 / Bush, J. 37 - margin: Clinton +14
Margin Average: Clinton +15
Margin differential, Q'piac to PPP: 2 points
Hillary vs. Huckabee.:
Q'piac: Clinton 51 / Huckabee 36 - margin: Clinton +16
PPP (D): Clinton 52 / Huckabee 37 - margin: Clinton +15
Margin Average: Clinton +15
Margin differential, Q'piac to PPP: 0 points
Hillary vs. Cruz:
Q'piac: no Cruz matchup
PPP (D): Clinton 53 / Cruz 34 - margin: Clinton +19
Margin Average: -not possible to gauge-
Margin differential, Q'piac to PPP: -not possible to gauge-
So, that makes for 11 matchups:
Hillary vs. Christie (2)
Hillary vs. Paul (2)
Hillary vs. Bush, J. (2)
Hillary vs. Huckabee (2)
Hillary vs. Santorum (1)
Hillary vs. Ryan (1)
Hillary vs. Cruz (1)
I all 11 matchups, Hillary wins, and all of those wins are outside the MoE.
The pollsters see very different margins for the Hillary vs. Christie race: a 6 point margin differential is too much, imo.
But the polls' toplines and margins are practically identical to each other in the matchups Hillary vs. Paul, vs. Bush and vs. Huckabee.
10 of those 11 margins are +10 or more for Hillary. This means that 10 of those 11 margins are LANDSLIDE margins in a state that is generally considered a battleground state.
With the exception of the Q'piac Hillary vs. Christie - those margins are all bigger than Obama's 2012 margin. With the exception of both Q'piac and PPPP Hillary vs. Christie, those margins are bigger than Obama's 2008 margin.
All told, since November 2013 (1.5 years), there have now been 8 polls of Pennsylvania vis-a-vis 2016, with 34 matchups, and Hillary has won 33 of them.
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Let's take a quick look at Pennsylvania's electoral history back to 1960, or the last 14 presidential cycles:
2012 - Obama +5.38%
2008 - Obama +10.32%
2004 - Kerry +2.50%
2000 - Gore +4.17%
1996 - Clinton, B. +9.20%
1992 - Clinton, B. +9.02%
1988 - Bush, G.H.W. +2.32%
1984 - Reagan +7.35%
1980 - Reagan +7.11%
1976 - Carter +2.66%
1972 - Nixon +19.98%
1968 - Humphrey +3.57%
1964 - Johnson +30.22%
1960 - Kennedy +2.32%
We can see that Pennsylvania is a 10-for-14 DEM state in presidential politics.
But look at the margins. Excluding 2008, 1972 and 1964, Pennsylvania has been a single-digit margin state for a long time. In fact, the trend goes farther back than that:
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/compare.php?year=2012&fips=42&f=1&off=0&elect=0&type=state
Now, I didn't provide the national margins, but in every case since 1960, when a Democrat won the state, he won it with a margin LARGER than his national margin, and the four times that a Republican won this state, he won it with a margin SMALLER than his national margin. Even when Republicans do win here, the state "pulls" somewhat to the left.
We are so used to seeing single-margins in Pennsylvania polling that it is quite a surprise to see so many landslide margins.
Here the polling for Pennsylvania in 2012:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...0U3aFBuT09zQ2xXQ29fTjlJRlE&usp=sharing#gid=76
You will see that of the 61 prez polls taken in Pennsylvania in 2012, 53 of them were single-digit margins.
Here the polling got Pennsylvania in 2008:
Statistikhengst's ELECTORAL POLITICS - 2013 and beyond: FINAL POLL CONVERGENCE, No. 12
There were over 80 Pennsylvania polls in 2008, and in the early stages, McCain even won some of those polls, and there were lots of single-digit margins. Later, the polling showed a healthy amount of double digit margins for Obama, but on election eve, the average was: Obama +7.30. In both 2008 and 2012, President Obama outperformed the polling averages in Pennsylvania.
But in 2004, they were unbelievably narrow margins:
RealClear Politics - Polls
So, as is the case with a state like Oregon, the current margins tell us some about the idea of "a rising tide lifts all boats".
Hillary is beating Cruz by 19 points in Pennsylvania.
No one in our lifetime has seen such margins for a Democratic candidate in this state.
If these margins hold, then Pennsylvania will not even be a battleground in 2016 - unless Christie becomes the candidate.
