T-Paw missed his moment

Looking back at the 2008 Presidential election it's hard for me not to conclude that Barack Obama's March 18th speech on race was the most important single moment for his candidacy. Certainly without his 2004 Democratic Convention speech he likely doesn't even get to that point in the first place, but without the speech on race, at the height of the Jeremiah Wright controversy, he would probably not be President now.

Tim Pawlenty's 2011 Presidential campaign has a similarly singular moment you can point to as the end and it wasn't the Iowa straw poll.

I wrote this on June 8th in response to a PPP poll that showed Pawlenty in double digits for the first time:

This is the best showing for Tim Pawlenty in a national poll so far, going from only 5% on May 10th into the low double digits in three weeks. This rise in his support coincides with his official campaign announcement and subsequent media blitz, so it could be a temporary spike, or it could be upward momentum, we'll have to wait and see.

Four days later, on Fox News, Pawlenty uttered a line perfectly designed to destroy Mitt Romney, "ObamneyCare." It seemed like Tim Pawlenty had finally taken the gloves off and would start attacking the front runner. Not only the front runner, but a candidate who occupied almost the same exact political space as him.

And the very next day is the day his campaign died.

Pawlenty Polling Roundup

The last time I posted something about Tim Pawlenty, it was to look at the disconnect between how he was polling and how he was being talked up by the media. That was back in March.

Not much had really changed since then, the pundits were still treating him like a front runner and the polls still disagreed. But in the past week or so he has officially announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination for President and for the first time he's posted some decent polling numbers. Since I haven't covered any of these polls yet, I'm going to throw them all into one big Pawlenty polls post.

Are you ready for the T-Pawmentum?

PPP (6/2, GOP primary voters, 5/10 in parenthesis):

Mitt Romney: 16 (18)
Sarah Palin: 16 (12)
Tim Pawlenty: 13 (5)
Herman Cain: 12
Michele Bachmann: 9 (7)
Ron Paul: 9 (8)
Newt Gingrich: 9 (13)
Jon Huntsman: 4
Someone else/Undecided: 12 (11)
(MoE: ±4.1%)

The curious case of Tim Pawlenty

Tim Pawlenty finds himself in an interesting place right now, a place where few have managed to emerge victorious. The pundacricy loves him, but the voters don't know who he is, and the one's who do know who he is don't really like him that much.

For instance, Larry Sabato, the political Svengali at the University of Virginia, tells us:

Pawlenty has a strong team. It is well respected and in some respects envied by the other candidates. It's really one of his hidden advantages. He's not a front-runner. He's relatively unknown. But because of his team he's well positioned. He could easily become one of the finalists for the Republican nomination.

The linked article mentions many of the members of his team, some coming from Bush's political team but others coming from Mitt Romney's failed campaign. One problem, if he has such a great team, how do you explain this?

Bachmann leads field of non-contenders

PPP polled Republican Primary voters about their preferences for who should run for the Senate against Amy Klobuchar, not surprisingly Michele Bachmann leads the field, a field with very few possible challengers.

Public Policy Polling (12/10 Republican Primary voters, no trend lines):

Michele Bachmann (R): 36
Tim Pawlenty: 20
Norm Coleman: 14
Chip Craavack: 7
Tom Emmer: 6
John Kline: 5
Laura Brod: 4
Eric Paulson: 2
Some else/not sure: 6
(MoE: ±5%)

First poll of 2012 Senate race; Nothing to see here

PPP polled the 2012 Minnesota Senate race and found Amy Klobuchar leading the five GOPers they tested her against and garnering over 50% of the vote against them all. Long story short, Amy Klobuchar will be very difficult to beat in 2012.

Here's the breakdown of the match-ups.

PPP (12/7, no trend lines):

Amy Klobuchar (D): 56
Michele Bachmann (R): 39
Undecided: 4

Amy Klobuchar (D): 54
Norm Coleman (R): 40
Undecided: 6

Amy Klobuchar (D): 56
Tom Emmer (R): 38
Undecided: 6

Amy Klobuchar (D): 53
Tim Pawlenty (R): 43
Undecided: 4

Amy Klobuchar (D): 52
Eric Paulson (R): 34
Undecided: 14
(MoE: ±3.2%)

The T-Pawmentum builds

While PPP was in the field polling the Governor's race they were also asking about Presidential preference in 2012, here are the results for Minnesota.

Public Policy Polling (10/30, likely voters, no trend lines):

Tim Pawlenty: 19
Sarah Palin: 18
Mike Huckabee: 14
Mitt Romney: 11
Newt Gingrich: 11
Mitch Daniels: 3
Mike Pence: 3
John Thune: 2
Someone else/Undecided: 18
(MoE: ±4.4%)

The Hutchinson Effect

This is a footnote of sorts to The Horner Effect series, part three of which will be done soon.

A few people have questioned why I left the 2006 Governor's race out of The Horner Effect series. I suppose I should have more explicitly addressed why it was left out, so I'll do that now and while I'm at it I'll go ahead and dispell some zombie myths about the 2006 election, many of which are conveniently contained in a diary on Swing State Project:

If recent Minnesota gubernatorial elections are any indication, the great equalizer will be the late October televised debates. Polls moved in double digits in both directions in a matter of a week based on Minnesota gubernatorial debates. If you impress there, you're golden. If you fail to impress, you're ruined. And that's true almost wherever your poll numbers may currently be. The Independence Party's articulate 2006 candidate Peter Hutchinson was not in a position to win, but he nonetheless impressed in the debates and managed to surge at Mike Hatch's expense, handing victory to Pawlenty.

This is simply not true. There is no evidence that Peter Hutchinson cost Mike Hatch the election, despite popular belief.