Yesterday, Scott Rasmussen and his Rasmussen Reports released their most recent polling on the 2006 Iowa governor’s race. Here’s the breakdown:
Chet Culver 41 - Jim Nussle 38
Jim Nussle 39 - Mike Blouin 36
Jim Nussle 40 - Patty Judge 37Margin of error: +/-4.5%
I’m not sure why, but Ed Fallon was not listed in the polling results. I’m guessing there’s a good chance that, being an outside-Iowa polling firm, they didn’t consider Fallon’s campaign to be serious. However, I’m thinking Fallon has the potential to be a dark horse in this race and it’d be interesting to poll on which candidate Fallon supporters would vote for in the general should Fallon not win the primary.
So, what do the results mean? Clearly, among the three Democrats polled, Culver has the strongest electability of any of the Democrats in the field. Furthermore, I think it’s pretty clear that Nussle is really beatable. All of the results were within the margin of error. Granted, its primary season and thus people either don’t know who they plan on voting for or the numbers are just odd because of the crowded fields. In general, though, Nussle is beatable because he’s at 40 or below and he’s the presumptive nominee plus has wide name recognition in the state. You can’t make the same claim about Democrats because its a crowded primary. Were it one solid Democratic candidate things would be much different.
Read the full report for many more numbers, including Vilsack’s approval rating and Bush’s approval rating.
The Fallon Factor will be the big mystery in the democratic party primary for governor. Sure, he’s as liberal as many Greens, but he has earned a lot of respect for standing up for what he believes in, even if it’s not popular or politically expedient. Further, he doesn’t take any pac money- that’s a big plus for the clean-money election crowd.
The other thing to think about in relation to Fallon is the “he’s not electable buzz” that will start (if it hasn’t already) from within the leadership of his own party.
Have Blouin and Judge done something in the last 2 weeks to earn a 38% favorability rating? Didn’t the KCCI poll show them at 18% or 14% for name recognition? Hard to have an opinoin about someone you don’t even know. I wonder if in this poll they told the respondents what party the candidates belonged to before asking their opinions…
The crosstabs they say are for premium members on the Rasmussen link above actually give more detailed information about the questions and the results with breakdowns. Party titles were applied to each candidate.
I’d venture to say that some of the differences may be in the polling firms but I honestly don’t know. The Rasmussen report interviewed 500 people and KCCI’s did 600. I doubt that had anything to do with it but until I really crunch the numbers on the two I can’t offer any solid judgment.