Polling and Political Wrap-Up, 5/18/09

OK, OK...so it appears like this little feature is looking like a weekday special. Apologies to the election junkies out there, but there just isn't enough going on when the weekend hits. This far out from Election Day 2009 (to say nothing of 2010), it is hard to justify doing this seven days a week.

And now, in my best Casey Kasem impersonation...on with the countdown.

CA-SPECIAL ELECTION: Financing Initiatives Likely To Go Down

On the eve of a special election here in California where a battery of propositions are on the ballot dealing with the state's financial crisis, it appears that the vast majority of the propositions are in deep trouble. SurveyUSA polls the special election, and finds that the five propositions are presently failing (1A,1B,1C,1D,1E) are currently garnering only 29-37% support from voters. All have "no" votes ranging from 54-57%. The only one of the six initiatives passing was Proposition 1F, which would bar salary increases for election officials during years of budget deficit. Even that proposition is only passing 48-38, according to SUSA.

CA-32: Special Election To Replace Solis Tomorrow

In addition to the propositions that are garnering much of the ink on tomorrow's California ballot, there is also a special House election to replace Hilda Solis in California's 32nd district (western San Gabriel Valley, parts of East Los Angeles). The prohibitive favorite is probably Board of Equalization member Judy Chu. As with all things that are California politics, expect the folks at Calitics to be right on top of it.

CA-45: Bono-Mack to Voters: Not Now!! I'm Busy!!

This is amusing. Mary Bono-Mack, who represents a once-red, but rapidly becoming purple, district in California's Inland Empire was asked to participate in a Q&A session with the Palm Springs Desert Sun. As you can read here, Democratic candidate, and Palm Springs Mayor, Steve Pougnet, gave a brief and thoughtful answer to the first question in the series: why are you running for Congress?

Bono-Mack's reply is priceless:

Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs, declined to participate, saying she was focused on her Congressional duties and didn’t have time to provide responses at this time.

Well, that makes sense, of course. Because, after all, it probably took Pougnet...well...MINUTES to formulate that 142-word magnum opus.

CT-SEN: Dodd Draws Democratic Primary Challenger

Don't know what to make of this one: Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has apparently drawn a primary challenge from Merrick Alpert, a businessman who apparently has some deep fundraising ties to the state (his list of contributions on his website is a long one, and includes Joe Lieberman. The site is quick to note that those contributions were when Lieberman was a Democrat). Interestingly, one of those contributions was to Chris Dodd...for President. Last year. Stay tuned.

FL-GOV: McCollum To Make Gubernatorial Bid

In a move that will shock absolutely no one, former Orlando-area Congressman and current state attorney general Bill McCollum announced today that he will run for Governor of Florida next year. McCollum seems to have developed quite a knack for running for statewide office: this will be his fourth attempt at running statewide since he left the House in 2000, hot off of being one of the more vocal players in the Clinton impeachment saga. For those interested in the scoreboard, McCollum is 1-2 thus far in statewide electoral bids. His most recent attempt was his lone victory--a 53-47 win over Skip Campbell to become state A.G. His two losses came in Senate bids--a 51-46 defeat at the hands of Bill Nelson in the 2000 general election, and then a sizable 14-point primary defeat at the hands of Mel Martinez in 2004.

McCollum will probably get company in the Republican primary, as state agriculture commissioner Charlie Bronson (no...not THAT Charlie Bronson) is seen as a possibility. The GOP nominee will likely face a competitive contest with Democrat and state CFO Alex Sink. Mason-Dixon, perhaps presaging the Crist jump to the Senate, polled a potential McCollum-Sink matchup in April, and found it a dead heat.

NC-SEN: Four Names Emerge in Discussions About Burr Challenge

From CNN via Taegan Goddard, we learn that four names are being bandied about as possible Senate recruits in North Carolina now that Roy Cooper has demurred from a challenge to freshman Senator Richard Burr. There are a pair of Congressmen in the mix (Heath Shuler and Bobby Etheridge), former state treasurer Richard Moore (who lost a primary for governor last year to Bev Perdue), and current Lt. Governor Walter Dalton. Whomever emerges as the Democratic choice here will be in the ballgame against a freshman senator in the minority, with, as PPP reported last week, abysmal job approval ratings.

OK-GOV: J.C. Watts Leaning Toward A Political Comeback?

Ben Smith offers an inriguing possibility today: is former Congressman J.C. Watts, one of the most prominent African-American members of the Republican Party, thinking about getting back into elective politics? That is apparently the implication he gave on the Bill Press show this morning:

"I’m being encouraged to run. You know, listening to Republicans back in Oklahoma, they’re not real comfortable – and I said this publicly – they’re not real comfortable with the choices that they have right now."

One does have to wonder how comfortable Republicans in Oklahoma are going to be with a Republican politico who makes his intentions clear on the Bill Press Show....

While we are in the Sooner State, this is worth noting: Taegan Goddard is claiming that an advance look at a PPP poll out of Oklahoma reveals a potentially competitive race in 2010 for the US Senate in Oklahoma, but only if Coburn does not run. My question--what Democrat did they test? Was it Governor Brad Henry?

SC-SEN: Lindsey Graham's Rough Evening

If you thought you had a crappy weekend, Lindsey Graham's might have you covered. As the South Carolina GOP met to replace outgoing chairman Katon Dawson, the state's Republican political dignitaries were on hand to address the audience. Graham's address was the source of a little rancor:

Graham told the crowd there was nothing wrong with any conservative, and he wanted to build an open party that could win in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, as well as South Carolina.

"You’re a hypocrite!" one man yelled.

"I’m a winner, pal," Graham shot back. "Winning matters to me. If it doesn’t matter to you, there’s the exit sign."

Not to worry, Senator Graham, because it's lucky for you that your teammate in the Senate, Jim DeMint, was speaking right after you. Your colleague in the Senate's going to have your back, right, Lindsey??

Eh...not so much, no.

But U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, who followed Graham, said he’d rather have 30 senators who stand on principle than 60 who have none.

I'll bet the DC press absolutely can't WAIT to ask these two guys about the FL-Senate primary between Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio...

POLLING NEWS: A Little Dose of Polling Meta

Because there aren't nearly enough meta-diaries on the right side of the page, we get into a little introspection in the world of polling. It all began when the Washington Post ran a story this past weekend lamenting the lack of "acceptable" polling data in the 2009 Governor's race. Their chief complaint--most of the polls to date have been done with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) polling. One of the chief IVR pollsters around is Public Policy Polling. They, not surprisingly, took umbrage.

My take? The main things that consumers of polling data (not just campaigns, but political junkies like myself) want are twofold--volume and accuracy. IVR polling certainly offers both, if the last few election cycles are any indication. I am not saying it is inherently better or worse than traditional polling methods (Daily Kos attains data from one of the best traditional polling outfits out there in Research 2000, whose track record has been excellent), but it certainly, at this point, should be considered equally valid.

Especially when one considers a neat little appendage at the PPP website. If you look at the upper right-hand corner, you will a Wall Street Journal study of six pollsters, ranked by their accuracy in key battleground states in the 2008 general election. Notice that #1 (SurveyUSA) and #2 (PPP) are both IVR pollsters. Both were off of the final margin of victory, on average, by 1.06% or less.

Notice, also, that it quite a ways down to #3 (ARG).

One of WaPo's most peculiar complaints is that they argue that IVR polls are less likely to be "authentic" because the script is so much shorter. The easy, and inherently logical, counter to that: aren't you going to get a more representative picture of the electorate WITHOUT a million people hanging up because they don't want to spend the next 30-45 minutes of their life being asked a 76-question script??