The Daily Caller is reporting that Public Policy Polling is not only treating Tim Pawlenty as a candidate with, shall we say, “less than first tier status” these days, but is taking the additional step of not even including him as a choice in certain poll questions.
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 it polls in a direct match-up against President Barack Obama at the state level. 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.”
The group goes on to clarify that T-Paw will still be included in all of their primary election polls, but they are no longer matching him up against Obama in the state by state surveys. It’s interesting that they’re moving Perry – a guy who still isn’t even officially in the race – into Pawlenty’s slot, but I suppose they’re reading the tea leaves and assuming he’s going to get in at some point.
The signs haven’t been good for Tim lately. His fundraising has been rather anemic for someone who was originally thought to be heading for first tier status, even though he did manage to barely raise more than new frontrunner Michele Bachmann, at least by one measurement metric. Maybe the addition of Phil Handy to the T-Paw fundraising crew will perk things up, but the clock is ticking pretty fast for those at the back of the pack looking to make a move.
I can’t help but think that Pawlenty was originally counting very heavily on a huge, surprise splash in Iowa. (Think of it as a sort of “shock the world” strategy a la’ Rudy Giuliani in 2008.) But sadly for T-Paw, Bachmann seems to have long since sucked all the oxygen out of that room. He’s not making any inroads to speak of in New Hampshire and he’ll be facing the same popular faces in South Carolina that he will in Iowa for the most part. If he doesn’t pull off a miracle in the straw poll, I’m not sure where Tim goes from there.
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