A short edition of the Wrap for a Friday, as we head into what promises (at least here in SoCal) to be a hot summer-esque weekend:
CA-Sen: Rasmussen Polls Golden State, Finds Boxer (More or Less) Golden
Rasmussen, on what appears to be a tour of the 2010 Senate races, makes their way to California, and finds Barbara Boxer under 50%, but with solid leads over both GOP challengers. Interestingly, they have the race closer with the less-known (but more right-wing) Chuck DeVore, who trails Boxer in this survey by nine points (46-37). Against the betting favorite, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Boxer stretches out to a ten-point edge (49-39). Maybe Fiorina's poll numbers are being hamstrung by what has apparently been universally declared "the worst website ever", a site so bad that the DSCC put up their own parody in record time.
OH-Sen: Rasmussen Sees GOP In Lead In Open-Seat Race
Here's one of those Rasmussen polls where their numbers vary wildly from other respected pollsters. During the course of the summer months, we saw three pollsters (Research 2000, Quinnipiac, and PPP) all looking at the Ohio Senate race, and all of them had both Democrat Lee Fisher and Democrat Jennifer Brunner with leads (over varying size) over likely GOP nominee Rob Portman. Rasmussen would like to cast a dissenting vote, evidently, as they have Rob Portman with a one-point edge over Fisher (41-40) and a two-point edge over Brunner (42-40).
MI-Gov: Local Pollster Sees Huge Lead for Cox
If a new poll from Mitchell Communications for the Detroit News is to be believed (and there is a reason not to--more on that in a second), the GOP starts with a considerable lead in their quest to pick off the Governor's mansion in Michigan. According to the poll released today, GOP Attorney General Mike Cox has a thirteen-point edge over the likely Democratic nominee, Lt. Governor John Cherry (45-32). The poll also had Cox with a sizeable lead in the Republican Primary of seven points over nearest rival Peter Hoekstra, a Western Michigan Congressman. The caveat? Mitchell Communications seems to have a pretty solid GOP edge in their polling based on their 2006/08 performance. They also have, on occasion, gotten it badly wrong in Michigan in the past (they had Debbie Stabenow only up four points on the eve of a 2006 election where she won by 16 points).
MA-Sen: GOP Stall Tactics Fail, Kirk Sworn In As Senator
As was largely expected, a legal challenge by the Massachusetts Republican Party to block the appointment of Paul Kirk to the U.S. Senate by Democratic Governor Deval Patrick was denied today by a Suffolk County judge. This paved the way for Kirk to be sworn in on Friday afternoon. The GOP, perhaps unsurprisingly, blasted the decision, but made no definitive statements about an appeal.
KS-03: Potentially Strong GOP Contender Quits After Just Days
After securing over $100,000 in cash and commitments in just a week (while promising to self-fund a quarter of a million dollars more), Johnson County newspaper publisher Steve Rose abruptly ended his campaign to defeat sixth-term Democrat Dennis Moore in this moderate district around Kansas City. His health was an issue, as he stated in an email to supporters that bordered on a severe case of TMI (Too Much Information). This leaves former state legislator Patricia Lightner as Moore's only GOP foe.
INSIDE BASEBALL: GOP Pollster In Scalding Hot Water
It has not been a stellar week for the reputation of one of the more prolific campaign pollsters in the game. Strategic Vision, LLC, is a Republican-friendly pollster that began doing political surveys a few years back. The trouble for them started on Wednesday, when the AAPOR (the national organization for pollsters, essentially) delivered a fairly strong condemnation of the pollster for a failure to disclose basic methodological facts about their surveys, a disclosure that had been made by every other pollster that the AAPOR had contacted. Riffing off of that condemnation, Nate Silver took a bit of a shot at the pollster yesterday, criticizing them for the basic failure to disclose information and asking a few tongue-in-cheek questions of the pollster. Today, Silver took it several steps further, saying that there was an unusual pattern to Strategic Vision's polling and stopping just a step or two short of accusing the GOP pollster of fraud.
For their part, Strategic Vision is defending itself, at least somewhat. Johnson defended himself in comments at the website Research, but some of his argument is nothing short of bizarre:
Johnson believes a competitor is behind the original complaint to AAPOR, and wants to see the source of the action against his firm. “I find it unusual,” he said, “that an organisation that says they are all about transparency won’t supply us with details of the complaint. What they were asking for were trade secrets.”
He said: “We will be taking legal action. We have spoken with our attorneys and have gotten them the documentation and should know exactly the venue and specific charges that we will be filing against AAPOR specifically and individual members of AAPOR personally.”
Johnson alleges that the AAPOR’s acted “maliciously” in issuing its ruling. “I think it was timed to coincide with the results of a poll we had out yesterday [on the gubernatorial elections in Georgia],” he said.
AAPOR president Peter Miller told Research that Johnson’s claim that a competitor was behind the original complaint to the association was “completely wrong”.
Johnson's statement that AAPOR timed their condemnation to somehow discredit their Georgia primary poll is an absurdity on so many levels. First of all, why would anyone have a vested interest in discrediting a poll on a primary election which still remains ten months away? Second of all, as I pointed out here on Wednesday night, there was absolutely nothing earth-shattering or particularly newsworthy about the Georgia poll, which resembled not only SV's previous poll, but pretty much every poll taken in the state (SV likes Baker's chances in the Dem primary more than others, but that is just about the only difference).
Stay tuned.
