Election News

Scott Walker and Hillary Clinton both receive over 50% support from their party's registered voters in a new Wisconsin Public Policy poll. However, the love for home-state the governor doesn't currently extend beyond the Republican faithful as Clinton leads him by 9 in a general election match-up.

Republican Primary: Governor Walker received 53% of the vote, far ahead of Ben Carson who polled 12%. No other Republican reached 10%. Walker has recently been polling well in other states, usually seeing around 20% Republican support. It will be interesting to see how much of this 'home field advantage' filters into future polling in other states as Walker becomes more well-known.

While many details of next year's presidential primary and caucus schedule still remain to be worked out, polling is already occurring on a fairly regular basis. Bookmark and/or visit our new Democratic Nomination and Republican Nomination pages to view national polling, with links to individual states where polling has been conducted.

Beyond 2016 primary polling, we will update the content as more information becomes available about confirmed primary and caucus dates as well as delegates and delegate allocation, including the number needed to win each party's nomination.

Public Policy has surveyed North Carolina again, one month after their last 2016 poll of that state. 

Republican Primary: Scott Walker has surged ahead of the pack, picking up 24% of the vote. Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson all registered in the teens, performing very close to the last month. Walker seems to have picked up a lot of the voters who had leaned toward Mitt Romney in the prior poll.  

The final day of the Conservative Political Action Conference included the annual presidential straw poll.  For the 3rd year in a row, Senator Rand Paul won, earning 25.7% of the 3,007 votes. Governor Scott Walker finished a strong 2nd, at 21.4%, with Senator Ted Cruz and Dr. Ben Carson just about tied for 3rd at around 11.5% each.  

11 Republicans received greater than 1%.  The full list is below, courtesy of The Washington Times.

Hillary Clinton continues to poll well against her likeliest 2016 opponents, in this February 25 poll from Public Policy Polling shows Hillary Clinton with a 7-10% lead over 9 prospective 2016 challengers. Clinton's lead is 7 points over Paul, Perry and Rubio; 8 points over Carson, Christie & Walker, 9 points over Huckabee and 10 points over Bush and Cruz.

PPP also showed Bush leading Democrats Warren or Biden, indicating a large popularity gap between Clinton and other possible Democratic nominees.

Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are virtually tied in a new South Carolina poll from Public Policy Polling. These candidates garnered just under 20% support. Ben Carson, Lindsey Graham and Mike Huckabee also had double-digit support. Interestingly, the poll showed that over 60% of voters (regardless of party) didn't want home state Senator Graham to run for president.

Hillary Clinton has a significant lead in Iowa against all five prospective Republican nominees tested in a new Quinnipiac swing state poll released today (February 18). Quinnipiac also surveyed Virginia where the results were much tighter. There was quite a bit more variability in Colorado, where the results varied significantly based on match-up.

Quinnipiac polled over 1,000 voters in each of the three states, testing Clinton against Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee and Scott Walker. The margin of error for each poll was +/- 3%.

NBC News and Marist are out with polls from the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton dominates, with support of 65% or more of Democrats in all three states. The more interesting Republican results are summarized in the table below. Primary and caucus dates courtesy of FrontloadingHQ.

Philadelphia has been awarded the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. This will be the third DNC in Philadelphia. The first occurred in 1936, nominating Franklin Roosevelt for his second term.  In 1948, Harry Truman was nominated for his first full term.

The 2016 Republican National Convention will take place a week earlier, in Cleveland Ohio.

Nebraska is again looking to revisit its electoral college allocation rules, the New York Times reports.  Nebraska is one of only two states that does not award its electoral votes on a winner take all basis.  Both Nebraska and Maine award two electoral votes to the popular vote winner, with one electoral vote being allocated based on the popular vote in each individual congressional district.  There are 3 such districts in Nebraska and 2 in Maine, yielding 5 and 4 total electoral votes, respectively.

Only once has this resulted in an outcome different than winner take all. In 2008, Barack Obama won Nebraska's 2nd congressional district, encompassing the Omaha area.  Thus, despite the fact that John McCain won the state by 14%, he won only 4 of the 5 electoral votes in that state.