California political junkies are buzzing about the new Rasmussen poll which shows former Governor and current Attorney General Jerry Brown handily leading all the major Republican gubernatorial contenders (Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner and Tom Campbell) while Brown's rival for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination trailing the same three possible Republicans. Here's the data:
Brown (D) 44%, Whitman (R) 35%
Brown (D) 45%, Poizner (R) 32%
Brown (D) 44%, Campbell (R) 34%
Whitman (R) 41%, Newsom (D) 36%
Poizner (R) 40%, Newsom (D) 36%
Campbell (R) 42%, Newsom (D) 36%
This is definitely NOT very good news for the Governor Gavin movement. That's too bad, because MadProfesah has been leaning towards Newsom, especially since Gerry Brown hasn't announced whether he wants the job (again) yet, and acting as attorney general, Brown was responsible for the devastatingly incompetent presentation by an Assistant Attorney General during the Proposition 8 California Supreme Court oral argument.
UPDATE by Dave: I would say that this poll is fairly meaningless. I’m guessing Rasmussen pushed leaners hard to get any kind of opinion. I don’t think anyone has really engaged on this race, and anyone thinking it will remain static isn’t being honest. This is more of a reflection of name ID, for good and ill, than anything else.
The poll isn’t meaningless. It ISN’T just about name ID –there’s something more going on here, look at the Fav/Unfav/Not Sure numbers:
Brown 53/37/10
Newsom 41/44/14
Whitman 45/28/26
Poizner 36/32/32
Campbell 42/32/26
Brown runs better not because he has a significant name recognition adavantage over Newsom – he doesn’t. Its only a 5 point difference (90% have opinion of Brown, 85% have opinion of Newsom)
Brown runs better because he has a +16 favorability rating, while Newsom’s a -3
Newsom’s problem is not that he’s not well know enough – its that his negatives are so high
Newsom’s got serious problems. He’s the only candidate with higher unfav than fav rating. Its even worse when you look at intensity of feeling
Newsoms Very Fav is only 11%, his Very Unfavorable is 30%
For the other candidates, the ratio of their Very Fav/Very Unfav are all close to a 1:1 ratio:
Brown 20/24
Whitman 12/11
Poizner 8/12
Campbell 12/15
For Newsom its almost a 1:3 ratio (11/30)
There’s a campaign to run and there are things Newsom can do to try and alter the dynamics of the race. But its a lot more complicated than just trying to close a name ID gap
Here’s the link to the numbers:
http://www.rasmussenreports.co…