Why Down Ballot Races Could Still Be In Play
Some of you who have been following the Attorney General and Secretary of State races may have been led to believe that the races are all but over. I would caution you that for those two races it is too early to give up. Poll bias in only a small part of the reason.
I have well-documented the polling bias on other threads. I think the numbers will be 10-15 points more Republican than polls like Opinion Research indicate. For the Governor's and Lt. Governor's race, that makes them winable for the GOP candidates. The other races have a bigger gap, but for those races even that is not an unbridgable gap.
Here is why.......
(continued, click SATURDAY below and scroll down for rest of article)
I have well-documented the polling bias on other threads. I think the numbers will be 10-15 points more Republican than polls like Opinion Research indicate. For the Governor's and Lt. Governor's race, that makes them winable for the GOP candidates. The other races have a bigger gap, but for those races even that is not an unbridgable gap.
Here is why.......
(continued, click SATURDAY below and scroll down for rest of article)
posted by Mark Moore (Moderator) at Saturday, October 07, 2006
3 Comments:
As hard as it is to believe to those mired in the campaign trenches for months, most Arkansans could not name the candidates down ticket on a bet. As hard as it is to accept to people who find these races very important, most Arkansans don't, and they really haven't started paying attention yet.
Look at the Name Recognition in the Opinion Research poll. For the Attorney General Candidates it is 43 percent for Democrat Dustin McDaniel and 29 percent for Gunner DeLay. When the poll claims McDaniel is up 53-28 you should know that is is based on air. 53% of the poll respondents don't even recognize Dustin McDaniels name, so how solid can those numbers be?
It is the same thing in the Secretary of State race. Charlie Daniels is an incumbent and has been in state-wide office for many years. Still his name recognition is only 61%. Only 42% of voters had a favorable impression of Daniels. Most of those probabaly think he is a singer-songwriter. Those who actually know he is the Secretary of State in charge of elections make up the rest of that 61%! Jim LaGrone, the Republican candidate, has only 21% name recognition. Of course he is not polling well, people don't know who he is!
We can only hope that the voters will make it there business to find out who these people are during the course of the next month. The main thing to remember right now is that most voters don't pay attention to down ballot races until the end if at all. In those races, a strong finish is everything. If the Governor's race had a gap this wide I would tell you that it is over, because people are informed on that one already. But not on down ballot races. The low name recognition is strong evidence that these down ballot races are still in play.
DeLay closed the gap by 8 from the last one. That is pretty good.
Awesome! Keep up the good work, Gunner!
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