Current Texas Gov. Rick Perry may see the crowded field as evidence of a power vacuum in need of occupation. However, his own polling numbers aren’t so formidable right now, either — showing him to be on the same echelon as (or, if anything, slightly lower than) fellow Texan Ron Paul. This, of course, has the potential to change dramatically if Perry formally announces his candidacy and seriously pursues the GOP nomination.

In July 1999, Bush was the favorite of 59 percent of Republicans, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey (retrieved via PollingReport.com). At the time, U.S. Sen. John McCain’s support was at 3 percent, and it increased fairly steadily until March 2000, reaching 30 percent. Bush’s, meanwhile, stayed at around 60 percent, according to the series of surveys.

In January 1999, a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll pegged Elizabeth Dole as Republicans’ top choice, getting 30 percent of the vote, compared to 18 percent for Bush, who hadn’t formed his campaign committee yet. A Gannet poll around the same time had Bush leading Dole 39-22 percent, though.

In June 1999, a Washington Post survey showed Bush leading the GOP field with 49 percent of the vote, Dole second with 20 percent, “undecided” at 7 percent, and then the rest. Dole would drop her campaign in the fall, giving McCain room to work his best efforts.

This year, nearly all of the latest polls show former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the GOP frontrunner, but with only about 25 percent of the Republican vote, according to an average of polls maintained by RealClearPolitics.

A new IBOPE Zogby/Newsmax poll purports to show that Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann leapt ahead of Romney following the announcement of her candidacy and her exceeding of minimal expectations during the June 13 GOP presidential debate, according to the Christian Post. Bachman was the pick of 24 percent of survey respondents, followed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (who adamantly says he’s not running) with 17 percent, Romney with 15 percent, Herman Cain with 15 percent and Texas U.S. Rep. Paul with 13 percent.

According to Newsmax, the survey also showed Christie trouncing Romney in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, 62-19 percent, and Perry also easily beating Romney, 55-22 percent. While Christie is more popular than Romney among conservative and moderate Republicans, Perry is more popular than Romney among conservatives Republicans but less popular than Romney among moderate Republicans. Romney is most popular among liberal Republicans.

Aside from that piece of good news, however, Perry has generally been a nonfactor in national GOP presidential polls — much of that probably due to the fact that he’s not running yet and hasn’t usually been included in the polls.

According to the RealClearPolitics aggregation of polls, however, Perry has been an option in three of nine national surveys, and has an average support level of 5 percent. By comparison, fellow Texan Paul grabs 7 percent of the vote. Bachmann’s average support level is 6 percent — but the only poll taken after the GOP debate, by Rasmussen, showed her with 19 percent of the GOP vote (second to Romney’s 33 percent in that poll).

Meanwhile, a Dick Morris Poll conducted June 18-19 showed Romney leading the GOP field with 23 percent of the vote, followed by Bachmann and Paul, who each had 12 percent, then Perry, Cain and Newt Gingrich, each with 5 percent. According to theHouston Chronicle’s Texas on the Potomac blog:

“”Rick Perry shows weakness in the polling that might cause him to reconsider running for president,” Morris concluded. “As governor of Texas, he is already well known, particularly in the South. If he cannot produce more than a 5 percent vote share nationally or do better than 9 percent in his (home) region, he is not showing much strength.””

In opposition to the Zogby poll, the Dick Morris Poll showed that “The establishment Republicans who are Romney’s real first round opponents all do very poorly when measured against him,” according to Potomac.

According to Gallup — and in contrast to Zogby’s take — the June 13 GOP debate failed “to shake up” GOP candidates’ ratings among Republicans. Rather than asking respondents who their top candidate is, Gallup attempts to measure each candidate’s “Positivity Intensity Score” — the difference between the percentage of respondents with a strongly favorable opinion of the candidate, and those with a strongly unfavorable opinion of the candidate — together with each candidate’s level of recognition among respondents. (Perry’s not included in the Gallup series of polls.)

By Gallup’s metric, Sarah Palin, Romney and Bachmann are the only candidates with above-average ‘Positive Intensity Scores’ and above-average name-recognition.

While Cain’s ‘Positive Intensity Score’ has dipped in June, Bachmann’s rose, and Romney’s and Palin’s stayed level. Paul, meanwhile, has above-average name-recognition but a below-average ‘Positive Intensity Score,” putting him in company with Gingrich.

Hooper found an internal memo between the ADF and Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm hired to conduct the poll, that laid out the questions and who would be excluded from the sample. Bloggers, people who comment on blogs, political campaign volunteers and members of the media were all excluded from the poll.

As Hooper notes, excluding those Americans from the poll would have the effect of skewing the poll.

“We are dealing with an opposition movement that benefits as much from fog as we do from clarity,” he said. “So shutting out anyone who so much as comments on blogs only helps to get to an older, less engaged audience that is willing to affirm statements about ‘protecting traditional marriage’ and ‘stopping the decline in moral values.’”

But it wasn’t just the exclusion of politically engaged Americans that skewed the poll.

Faith in Public Life, a group that advocates for faith in the public square and organizes around social justice, also took issue with the poll, specifically its wording. The ADF poll asked for response to the statement “I believe MARRIAGE should be defined ONLY as a union between one man and one woman,” while mainstream polls in recent months asked whether or not same-sex marriage should be legal.

“A key difference is that these [mainstream] polls focused on legality rather than the ‘definition’ of marriage,” the group said on Friday. “Given that the political debate surrounding same-sex marriage pertains to legislation rather than the contents of the dictionary, it’s hard to see the relevance of ADF’s data. It certainly is interesting, but it’s not even close to a refutation of the overwhelming body of current nonpartisan opinion research pointing to majority support for legal recognition of same-sex marriage.”

Recent polls have found a slight majority of Americans in favor of gay marriage. In May, Public Religion Research Institute found 51 percent were in favor of same-sex marriage. Another May poll by Gallup found 53 percent in favor of gay marriage. CNN found 51 percent supporting gay marriage in April, and in March an ABC News/Washington Post found that number to be 53 percent.

The ADF was founded by several religious right groups including the American Family Association, which has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Here’s the ADF memo outlining the poll’s methodology:

ADFMethodologyMemo

The Magellan Strategies poll finds that Wilson would have support of 59 percent of voters in a three-way race that includes Lt. Gov. John Sanchez and businessman Greg Sowards.

Sanchez would receive 17 percent of the vote and Sowards 2 percent, according to the poll. Another 11 percent said they would vote for another candidate, while 11 percent remain undecided.

Wilson has a name recognition of 99 percent of primary voters with 84 percent having a favorable opinion of her, including 55 percent who have a very favorable opinion of her.

Sanchez has name recognition of 88 percent with 58 percent having a favorable opinion and just 13 percent have an unfavorable opinion. This leaves 17 percent who do not know Sanchez well enough to form an opinion of him.

Sowards falls well behind both, with a full 41 percent of Republican primary voters responding that they have not heard of him.

The poll includes Sanchez but does not include Rep. Steve Pearce. Neither have announced that they are running for Senate, but have been considering a run at the open seat.

Columnist Bill English, who has announced he will run for Senate, was not included in the poll.

The poll also finds “sky high” Republican approval ratings for Gov. Susana Martinez. The poll finds that 93 percent of Republican voters have a favorable opinion of her and 75 percent have a very favorable opinion of her.

Wilson served as the head of Martinez’s transition team.

While Sanchez is the lieutenant governor under Martinez, the position is not chosen by the candidate and instead is the result of a party primary.

Magellan Strategies conducted polling for Doug Turner’s gubernatorial campaign in New Mexico during the Republican primary in 2010. The firm conducted this poll with its own resources and says it “does not have a business relationship with any candidate or group interested in the 2012 New Mexico US Senate Republican Primary.”

The poll of 801 Republican primary voters was conducted from April 26 to April 27 and has a +/- 3.46 percent margin of error. The full polling memo is available here.

The candidate that pundits have bandied about as the front runner unsurprisingly finished first in the poll. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst finished with 23-percent support in the poll. In their examination of potential general election match-ups, PPP showed that Dewhurst held the highest name recognition and had the widest margins over Democrats than the other three GOP candidates included.

The unexpected finisher among Republican voters was U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, who finished a close second behind Dewhurst with 21 percent. Paul has not indicated that he is contemplating a Senate run — instead he appears more likely to mount another presidential bid in 2012 — but he is a popular figure among Texas GOPers. Paul even finishes tied with Mitt Romney for fourth in the poll’s measure of 2012 Republican presidential contenders with 10 percent, only trailing Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is Texas Republicans’ third favorite option according to the poll, gathering 14 percent. None of the other possible candidates passed the double-digit margin, as U.S. Rep. Joe Barton placed fourth, with seven percent, ahead of other candidates — including former Railroad Commission Chair Michael Williams and former solicitor general Ted Cruz — who have already made it clear they intend to seek the nomination.

PPP surveyed 400 “usual Texas Republican primary voters” producing a +/-4.9 percent margin of error. The poll was conducted between Jan. 14-16, just days after Hutchison announced her intentions to retire from the U.S. Senate when her current term expires.

The poll — commissioned by major environmental groups — indicates that cap-and-trade was not a major issue for Republican voters in a slew of House races. Republican voters were asked to name their biggest concern with the Democrat running in the race. While 27 percent chose voting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) agenda, only 7 percent said it was because the Democrat supported the House cap-and-trade bill when offered a list of six options. The poll surveyed 1,000 voters in 83 “battleground” congressional districts.

The poll has received a lot of attention in the last 24 hours not just for its content, but for how it has been reported. Environmentalists have criticized Politico and others for reporting the results of the elections as a “day of reckoning” for lawmakers who voted for the House climate bill. They have also criticized reporters (including me) for treating the poll as an effort by environmentalists to spin the election results. Now, the poll certainly is an effort to spin the election results, but that doesn’t mean the results aren’t significant.

I thought I’d try to give some insight into why reporters cast the poll the way they did. First, and most obvious, the poll was conducted by environmentalists, the very group that benefits from the poll’s findings.

Second, environmental beat reporters did not take into account the broader election narrative. In many ways, this is a problem created by beat reporting. Environmental reporters scoured the election results on Tuesday night looking for story ideas.

Two key races were foremost on my radar and, I can assume, on the radars of other environmental reporters: those of Reps. Tom Perriello (D-Va.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.). When both candidates lost in quick succession, the cap-and-trade “referendum” narrative began to take shape.

Perriello has become something of a celebrity on the left, having voted for cap-and-trade, health care and the stimulus package as a Democrat, decisions that could put him in a tight spot in his conservative district on Tuesday. Boucher, also from a conservative Virginia district, voted for the cap-and-trade bill as well, after long negotiations with key lawmakers.

When both Perriello and Boucher lost their races, environmental beat reporters (myself included) quickly noted that both lawmakers had voted for cap-and-trade. The problem is, other issues came into play in these races too. The environmentalist poll says, for example, that only 5 percent of the people who voted for Perriello’s opponent, Republican Robert Hurt, said their biggest concern was Perriello’s vote for the House cap-and-trade bill.

So while 43 Democrats who voted for the House climate bill either lost their races or retired their seats, which were then won by Republicans, it’s difficult to say without specific polling data whether they lost because of their climate vote or for other reasons. Further complicating the idea that the vote was a “referendum” on cap-and-trade, 27 of the 43 Democrats who voted against the House climate bill lost their seats.

While we can’t say cap-and-trade was a key issue in the election, it’s important to note that it was an issue in many races. Cap-and-trade is deeply unpopular among Republicans, and the policy was one of many the GOP employed to criticize President Obama and Democrats. The success of the Republican overall argument — which touched on the economy, the role of government, health care and, yes, cap-and-trade — was the reason for the massive Republican gains in the House and Senate.

I’ve spoken to a few environmentalists who point to several Senate races as examples of where climate change played a major role, including Colorado and Nevada. But while there was a lot of talk of climate change in those races (see Ken Buck), I haven’t seen any indication that either of those races turned on the issue. Like many races in the country, climate change was one of many issues that formed voters’ opinions.

One of the only places, it seems, where climate change played a demonstrable role in the election was in California, with Proposition 23. The ballot initiative, which failed after intense campaigning by the oil industry on one side and environmentalists on the other, would have overturned the state’s landmark global warming law.

While health care emerged as the top issue on the sites, energy was mentioned as a key issue on 72 percent of both Democrats’ and Republicans’ sites. For Democrats, health care was mentioned on 79 percent of the lawmakers’ sites; energy tied jobs, education and gun rights for second place.

For Republicans, energy was also mentioned on 72 percent of sites, right behind health care and deficits spending. (Interestingly, gun rights was mentioned on 66 percent on Republican websites, 8 percent fewer than the Democrats’ sites.)

But Nate Silver, whose FiveThirtyEight.com was recently acquired by the Times, notes that Democrats are “having trouble articulating a clear set of policy goals,” particularly on energy, where some moderate House Democrats don’t want to draw undue attention to the cap-and-trade program they passed last year.

On energy, the Democrats do have a clearer policy proposal: their bill to introduce a cap-and-trade system, which passed the House last year but not the Senate. Many of the Democrats, however, spoke about “energy independence” in much vaguer terms (as did many Republicans). And a few – like Mike Oliverio, a conservative Democrat in West Virginia — noted their opposition to the cap-and-trade proposal.

According to a poll conducted by WWL-TV and other local Louisiana stations, 48 percent of voters would reelect Vitter and 36 percent would vote for Melancon. Vitter’s lead is smaller than a June Rasmussen poll, which put Vitter ahead by 18 percentage points.

But both Vitter and Melancon have to win their Aug. 28 primary battles. Vitter has a competitive primary, with former Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor. But the poll shows that voters overwhelmingly prefer Vitter.

According to WWL-TV:

In the Republican primary, Vitter scores 74 percent of the vote. Former Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor gets 5 percent and physician Nick Accardo earns 3 percent. “Undecided” gets the second highest number in the contest: 18 percent.

The poll also shows Melancon easily winning the Democratic primary.

For more, check out my story on oil spill politics in the Vitter/Melancon race

Mike Duncan, chairman of American Crossroads, told The Washington Times that his group and American Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies plan to plow more than $49 million of it into 11 Senate races in anticipation that the Republican Party is within reach of a Senate majority.

And, in an inversion of the usual image of “coattails” descending from the top of the ticket to a party’s candidates for lower offices, he says a number of Senate seats are in play because of the strength of strong House candidates in the respective states.

“People thought it wasn’t possible, but Republicans now have a good chance of winning control of the Senate – in part because we have a good chance of taking the House,” he said.

The groups are basing their optimism about taking back the Senate partly on a poll conducted by the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies, which tested 1,300 likely voters across 13 states, rendering a state-by-state sample size that’s so small, it makes the results effectively meaningless.

Nonetheless, Duncan argues the poll shows Republican candidates leading by an average of 8 points in Republican-held Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio, and ahead by 7 points in Democrat-held Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Washington. Of those thirteen Senate battleground states, American Crossroads pledges to spend money in eleven of them — candidates in Delaware and Indiana look like they’re on their own.

Presented with a pair of statements summarizing the two parties’ basic economic messages (“The Democratic stimulus package has created or saved more than three million jobs. The only answer from Republicans is voting against extending unemployment benefits and protecting companies that send jobs overseas” versus “Republicans are trying to protect small businesses, which are the engine of our economy. Democrat tax increases and stifling regulations on small businesses are strangling the primary source of new jobs in America”) independent voters picked the Republican position by a 19-point margin, 56 percent to 37 percent.

Ayres, whose full memo can be found here, signed off by writing, “We look forward to seeing you in Kansas City and sharing the full presentation of our findings.”