Unlikely Voter

Quinnipiac University put out a pair of polls this week I thought were interesting to note. Now, I have and still do think that it’s too soon to test general election Presidential matchups, so don’t think I’m reading a lot into these. But apart from that, I find it odd that Mitt Romney is doing better in Pennsylvania than he is in Ohio.

The Republican party has held five primaries this cycle to date: New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and Arizona. Mitt Romney won the statewide vote in four of them, including the last three.

Super Tuesday tomorrow will shake all that up, of course. But Ohio looks to be one state Romney may come back to win from Rick Santorum.

Once Newt Gingrich finally gained some genuine attention after months of praise of his debate performances, the Republican presidential race became a mess. We didn’t know who was leading. It could have been Gingrich, Mitt Romney, or Herman Cain.

For now though it’s settled: Newt Gingrich leads. And as I’ve said in the past, watch his favorability ratings to know whether it’ll last.

Obviously the big story this week in the Republican Presidential race is the story Politico broke discussing sexual harassment allegations, and whether Herman Cain would be helped or hurt by that story.

As it turns out, if the new Quinnipiac poll is to be believed, he was already on the way up before the story broke.

Two more polls are out that absolutely confirm Cain is a serious force in the Republican Presidential race right now. Quinnipiac and CBS leave no more doubt, as the last four polls have all put Herman Cain at 17%, right up alongside Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

I’m going to try to break down these numbers get a good snapshot of this Cain moment.

Quinnipiac put out a pair of new polls, focusing on the Republican primary race in Pennsylvania and in Ohio. They have some problems that limit their utility, but I believe they will get much attention today because of their top line results, so it’s time to take a look anyway.

Why the attention? Romney bucks the national trend again to lead in both states.

Attacks on Rick Perry, new Presidential candidate and sudden poll leader, have begun to mount. He will soon take the stage in a debate against the other candidates. His opponents in both parties are determined to leave a mark on him.

Let’s take a look at where he’s at as the pressure grows.

Since Governor Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Senate had a big uproar over unions of government employees, and that uproar has spread to states like Ohio, there’s been a great deal of issue polling on unions and collective bargaining. I tend to ignore all of it, just as I ignore most issue polling. I’ve gotten comments that this is a failure of the site in fact, that I don’t hit these things more.

I have a standard answer for why I tend to ignore issue polling, though: the results are volatile and easily manipulated, either accidentally or intentionally.

The last time Quinnipiac Uniersity covered the Pennsylvania Senate race, the result was right in the middle of the pack, and inline with every poll from mid-July to early October: a seven point lead for Republican Pat Toomey over Democrat Joe Sestak.

But now, just as PPP came out with its shocking Sestak lead, Q says the race is close.

Right after the primaries in New York, when Republicans finally found out that Joe DioGuardi would be going against Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, they got a big bounce in the polls.

Judging by the new Quinnipiac, that bounce had a finite lifespan, and that lifespan was not particularly long.