Yesterday on Kos there was a new new PPP poll for the WI recall election in Senate District 8 between Republican Alberta Darling and Democrat Sandy Pasch. It has Darling up 5 points with almost no undecideds. Since a recent Dem poll had Sandy up one, this is a disappointment. At least at first glance. However, a closer look reveals the same concerns that were raised with the previous PPP poll in SD 8. It appears that this poll also under-represents the strongest Pasch voters in the district: non-whites from the City of Milwaukee.
PPP again graciously provided the area codes and first three digits of the phone numbers. As in March, Milwaukee county appears to be under-sampled. Based on area code, only 44% of the respondents were from the county. A typical SD8 electorate is about half Milwaukee County.
More concerning than the county totals is the geographical distribution of the non-whites who responded to the poll. Only 59% of the non-white sample is from Milwaukee county. Further, by looking at the three digit phone prefixes, it appears that close to half of the Milwaukee County minority sample is not from the City of Milwaukee. Both of these numbers are far from the actual proportions.
The primary reason for the under-representation of these groups is probably because City of Milwaukee Latinos and African Americans in SD8 are much more likely to not have landlines than other voters in the district, putting them beyond the reach of the poll. We have knocked many doors in these areas. Each time we get a phone number we ask if it is a land line or a mobile. The proportion of cell phones to landlines is at least 3 to 1.
This is important because the City of Milwaukee Wards are the most solidly Democratic wards in all of SD8. Further, re-weighting by race, party or any of the factors queried for in the poll will not fix this. It's impossible to say from this sample exactly where the race stands. But it is close. Almost certainly closer than five points. In any case, this election will be won or lost on the ground August 9th. Let's get to Work!