PPP: Obama lead in New Mexico plummets from 14 points to 5

[WI_DEM]

I guess I'm wondering why, suddenly, New Mexico Dems are turning on Obama:

PPP's newest New Mexico poll finds the race for President there getting a lot more competitive. Barack Obama continues to lead but his advantage is down to 5 points at 49-44, a far cry from the leads of 14 and 15 points he had on our previous two polls of the state.

The big difference between now and April comes with Democrats. Previously Obama was winning them 85-12 but now that lead is down to 73-21. New Mexico is a state, like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where any chance at victory for Romney is going to require winning over a significant number of conservative Democrats. Right now he's doing a pretty decent job of that.

New Mexico still looks like a lean Obama state, but a surprise choice by Mitt Romney of Susana Martinez as his running mate could make the state a toss up. With her on the ticket Obama's lead drops all the way down to 48-47. That's a testament to Martinez's appeal with Democrats. She would reduce Obama's lead with them even further to 70-25. There aren't a lot of potential VP choices who would make a big difference in their home states, but there also aren't a lot with a 56/34 approval spread.

Gary Johnson's potential impact on the race in New Mexico just keeps on declining. In December he was polling at 23%. By April that was down to 15% and now we find him at only 13%. Interestingly he hurts Obama a little bit more than Romney, pulling the President's lead down to 42-38. He gets 24% of the independent vote, and a lot of his support is coming from more Democratic leaning independents. Voters in the state are closely divided on Johnson with 39% rating him favorably and 40% unfavorably.


http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/

This is the second PPP poll this week showing Mittens making gains in key states--the other being Iowa. My question is why when media speculation on Mitten's finances has been high and the news for him negative is Romney making gains???

[WI_DEM]

1. PPP says Obama's lead among latinos went from 37-points to 22? What has Mitt done

to suddenly appeal to latino voters?

[Robbins]

5. My feeling

These were mostly taken before the relentless Bain attacks and after June job numbers.I feel It's going to be awhile till we know the
full impact on latest Bain attacks.

[WI_DEM]

7. Taken July 13-16

About a week after the jobs report and in the midst of the Bain reports. But I do think we'll have to see how things look down the line.

[Xyzse]

12. Fox has started a new Latino Channel?

Would that be it?

[stevenleser]

2. I think they are outliers or there are errors in the sampling

there is nothing going on that should have affected the percentages like that.

[NYC Liberal]

6. Yeah, wait until the next one and let's see.

[julian09]

3. because they want Obama to spend money in their states.

[WI_DEM]

4. So Dems are telling pollsters that they are voting for Romney so that Obama

will spend money in New Mexico?

[former9thward]

17. The Obama campaign uses their own private pollsters.

They do not use PPP, Gallup, etc. to determine where to spend money. The Obama campaign (like the Romney campaign) does not release poll numbers in any of the states.

[WI_DEM]

8. Gov. Martinez of NM would be the only potential running mate for Mitt

that I would fear. She is very popular in NM and could make a difference nationally among latios, too, I think. However, she has indicated she wasn't interested, but you can never know for sure.

[yellowcanine]

9. Makes no sense in light of this recent poll of Hispanics.

http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/washington/2012/07/obama-opens-up-big-lead-in-poll-of-latino-voters.html

I think somehow the Hispanic vote was not measured correctly.

[WI_DEM]

10. I agree.

[Robbins]

14. Also

Over at political wire comments some think that perhapes PPP after nate Silver called them with a democratic+3 house effect they
may have wanted to combat that Image with this and Iowa poll.

There have been little to move democrats and Hispanics to Romney.

Don't forget Obama was under polled In New Mexico In 2008 just as In Nevada.2010 also had democrats underpolled In both
Nevada and Colorado.

Those who bash PPP will now use their polls from this week to boost Romney.

[Marzupialis]

11. I agree too. Obama got 69% of Latinos in 2008

Won by 39% margin vs. McCain. These PPP results are odd.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#val=NMP00p1

[progressivebydesign]

13. The only numbers I'll look at is election night. The polls are meaningless...

are they doing them in SPANISH? on Cell Phones? What's their methodology? I'm not going to get twitterpated over a PPP poll, because they were largely wrong in 2008, as most polls are now.

And geez... is it starting already?? The hand-wringing, posting polls of Romney's surging suddenly???

A poll is a snapshot in time. And with the way people live their lives now, the people who routinely support the Democrats, they're pretty useless.

I get bored with the hand-wringing...

[Doctor_J]

15. They've probably started factoring in voter purges

A huge number New Mexico citizens will be denied the right to vote in November. PPP is probably taking that into account.

[DCBob]

16. I dont think we should expect a major bump from the Bain/taxes controversy.

This is more about defining Romeny and will have impact long term.

Being ahead by 5 in NM is still good news... imo.

[woolldog]

18. Oh no, we're screwed.