Polls: Trump Holds, Fiorina and Kasich Rise

Kasich? Okay whatever. I guess I'll have to force myself to concentrate on his boring words next time.

This poll was just released in New Hampshire, where Trump, it is said, to "stall," though he is stalling at the top of the field. for the moment.

Big movement for Fiorina.

In a national poll, Trump keeps his same level of support (well, he gains a statistically insignificant one), and Fiorina also rises.

The Reuters-Ipsos poll is an online survey, which is always a little iffy. Only 278 self-identifying Republicans participated; the MoE is 6.7% * -- more than most candidates' levels of support.

But, going by that: Fiorina boosted her support from a barely-there 1% to 6%. That may not sound like a lot, but no other candidates besides Trump and Jeb! got more than 8% -- so she's now solidly among the the pack that trails 1 and 2.

This is pretty bad news right here:

Despite Trump's outsider appeal, he fared no better against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton than other Republican candidates. In a head-to-head match-up, Clinton would beat Trump by 43 percent to 29 percent, the poll found. Clinton would beat other Republican candidates such as Bush, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted Cruz by similar margins.

I don't get how they do a head-to-head with self-identifying Republicans, but I guess maybe the Republicans were a subset of the larger online survey.

The debate did little to change Republican voters' opinions of Trump, the poll found. One-third said they liked him more after the debate, one-third said they liked him less, and the remaining third said their opinions had not changed.

Other candidates fared better. Voters were more likely to say the debate had improved their opinions of Rubio, Cruz, Fiorina, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Only Kentucky Senator Rand Paul appears to have been hurt, as 8 percent said their opinion of him improved while 22 percent said they felt more negative.

With the exception of Huckabee, whose obvious demagoguing and catchphrasing annoyed me as Low-Rent Politician Trickery, I saw things the same way, as to who was hurt and who was helped.

Though I'm genuinely surprised Trump wasn't hurt, too. The poll says one third had a lower opinion of him, but most of them already didn't like him. So he comes out, per this online poll, relatively unscathed.

* Actually, they call it a "credibility interval" -- is this a term they use with online polling because they can't call it MoE as in a true, random-digit-dial telephone poll? I don't know.

I can't give you an answer -- Wikipedia's definition assumes a fluency with statistical theory, so it's impenetrable to me.

posted by Ace at 12:29 PM

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