More horrible polling news for Gov. Rick Perry: His numbers in New Hampshire are so low that they may be a statistical error.
A new poll published late last night by Suffolk University and Boston’s 7News reaffirms that Mitt Romney is still leading comfortably in the Granite State, sitting on 41%. Fighting out for second are veterans crazies Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich on 14% (coda on those numbers: Elsewhere in the poll, only Gingrich and Romney were identified as looking “presidential.”)
And Perry? He polled 2%. That’s a six percentage point drop since the same poll in in September.
The survey of 400 New Hampshire Republican comes with a margin of error of +/-4.9% at a 95 percent level of confidence. That means that Perry could actually be polling anywhere between 6.9% and a big fat zero. It also places him in a statistical tie with Worst Persons in the World regulars Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann.
Now let’s look at those full results:
Romney 41% (no change since September)
Ron Paul 14% (no change)
Newt Gingrich 14% (+10 points)
Jon Huntsman 9% (-1)
Herman Cain 8% (+7)
Rick Santorum 3% (+2)
Rick Perry 2% (-6)
Michele Bachmann 1% (-4)
Add in the margin of error, and Romney still has a comfortable lead before the New Hampshire primary polls open on Jan. 10. However, even the most generous application of that fiddle factor to Perry’s numbers show his ship is sinking fast.
Heavy math time: Let’s take that 8% he polled in September. With the same +/-4.9% margin of error, the real numbers are anything between 12.9% and 3.1%. This time around he is really anywhere between 6.9% and 0%. So that means the most generous interpretation is that he has added 3.8% over the last two months, but is still bottoming out in single digits. The worst interpretation for Perry’s people is that he went from the September high and has cratered out. Either way, it’s a bad news day at Camp Goodhair.
This article appears in November 18 • 2011.
