Public Policy Polling Drops Tim Pawlenty From Statewide General Election Polling
This is most assuredly a bad sign for Team T-Paw:
As a result of Tim Pawlenty’s poor performance in its latest national poll, Public Policy Polling will no longer include the former Minnesota governor on the list of candidates whom it polls in a direct match-up against President Barack Obama in state polls. Pawlenty will still be included in PPP’s Republican primary polls.
PPP is set to release the results of its national poll this week. Teasing those results on Monday, Tom Jensen, PPP’s director, tweeted: “Rick Perry debuts in our national polling at 12%. Will replace Pawlenty in our state level general election polls because T-Paw is now 8th.”
He later clarified to The Daily Caller that Pawlenty was “only being dropped from our general election polling at the state level [from] the people we test against Obama. That’s limited to the top 5 in our national polling. He’ll still be in the Republican primary polling.”
Jensen explained that, “Who gets polled in general election match-ups is determined by the standings for the GOP primary since ostensibly the people who do best in the GOP primary have the best chance of ending up as Obama’s opponent.”
Pawlenty, having apparently fallen to eighth place, no longer meets that criterion.
This is a sign that Pawlenty’s campaign is floundering as he fails to breakthrough into the top tier of candidates, and has seems himself eclipsed by Michele Bachmann in the do-or-die state of Iowa. At this point, his next major test will be the Ames Straw Poll in August. Without a good showing — first or second place I’d say, but a strong third might be adequate as well — I don’t see the party regulars hanging around T-Paw much longer. And, as I said in June, if Rick Perry gets in the race then I think Pawlenty is all but dead in the water.
If pawlenty’s campaign is DOA does that leave Romney as the only fairly sane candidate? Am I missing anyone?
I think this is a terrible mistake. Pawlenty is the embodiment of Generic Republican.
I am not sure if Pawlenty was sane or not, but he at least had the potential to be sane. I fully expect Romney to be eviscerated from multiple fronts by his competitors once this thing really starts up in earnest in another couple of months. Those attacks from the right will likely be fairly effective.