Daily Kos

OR-SEN: PPP-- Novick 38, Merkley 33; SUSA Coming

by torridjoe

Mon May 19, 2008 at 01:43:05 PM PDT

So you want to know how the Senate race is going in Oregon? Public Policy Polling has taken a shot at it, and from their blog we discover:

Goberman....................................................... 1%
Loera .............................................................. 1%
Merkley ........................................................... 33%
Neville ............................................................. 6%
Novick............................................................. 38%
Obrist .............................................................. 1%
Undecided....................................................... 19%

 Well now! As you can see, Mr. Novick holds a 5-point numeric edge here, with 38% of the vote and 19% still undecided. Practically speaking, as with previous polls the undecided vote is waaay too high to make a definitive call--but Novick's lead in this iteration comes extremely close to being a statistically significant advantage (2.7x2 = 5.4%  confidence interval; 5 point Novick lead).

{more below}

The authors continue to call it a tie, which it is...barely. Their comments:

The better Barack Obama does, the better Novick's chances, our poll found. Novick leads 45-34 with Obama supporters, while Merkley has a 34-30 advantage with those who are supporting Clinton.

Merkley leads with senior citizens and the two are tied with young voters, but Novick currently has a strong advantage with middle aged voters in the state.

Novick also has a strong advantage with men, while Merkley has the small edge with women.

This race could go either way in tomorrow's tally.

 

One would have to agree with the safe assessment of a toss-up, but two of the three most recent iterations have Novick with a nominal lead at or just within the MoE. On that tip, because SUSA has also released Presidential results for Oregon, it's almost assured they have done a final Senate poll as well. The sponsor, Portland TV station KATU, likes to keep a lid on those numbers until their evening newscast, so if they are coming the public won't get them until later. The most recent SUSA showed no fundamental change from its previous iteration, although Novick and Merkley swapped the lead, the latter up 31-27. Will it continue to show a nominal Merkley edge or perhaps a building into signficance territory--or will Novick surge back into a lead?

Tags: 2008 Elections, Oregon, OR-SEN, Senate, President, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Jeff Merkley, Steve Novick, Democratic Primary, Candy Neville, Public Policy Polling, Survey USA, robopolls, polling (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

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Permalink | 32 comments