Posted on 09/17/2002 7:08:49 AM PDT by BlackRazor
Poll puts Sebelius 17 points ahead
BY JEAN HAYS
The Wichita Eagle
In the race for governor, Democrat Kathleen Sebelius has a wide lead over Republican challenger Tim Shallenburger, according to a poll by The Wichita Eagle and KWCH, Eyewitness News 12.
The poll, taken over the weekend, is the first to be made public since the parties chose nominees in the August primary.
With the election still 50 days away, Sebelius has a 17-point lead. She owes much of her popularity to female voters.
Womensaid they prefer Sebelius to Shallenburger by a 2-1 ratio, regardless of their party.
It's called the gender gap, according to Joe Shipman of SurveyUSA, the national company that conducted the poll.
"This is a phenomenon we are seeing a lot this year," he said.
In Minnesota and Maryland, where voters will choose a governor between a woman who is a Democrat and a man who is a Republican, polling shows women voters are overwhelming choosing by gender rather than party, he said.
The survey questioned 680 Kansans who are likely to vote in the Nov 5 election. The statewide poll has a 3.9-point margin of error.
Of those polled, 55 percent said they intended to vote for Sebelius, while 38 percent said they would vote for Shallenburger.
Only 6 percent of the voters said they were undecided or planned to vote for other candidates. Two percent of those polled said they planned to vote for Libertarian Dennis Hawver; 1 percent went with Reform Party candidate Ted Pettibone.
Bob Murray, a spokesman for Shallenburger's campaign, said he was not surprised by the poll.
Eight weeks before the primary election, polls showed Shallenburger trailing by 20 points, he said. Shallenburger won by 13 points.
"The election is not tomorrow," he said.
Sebelius' campaign is not taking anything for granted, according to communication director Nicole Corcoran-Basso.
"We appreciate the confidence it shows in Kathleen Sebelius," she said. "The only poll we really count on is from the people of Kansas on Nov 5."
Among the poll's findings:
Younger voters support Shallenburger, while those 55 and up tend to like Sebelius.
Only 3 percent are undecided, according to the poll. The low number of undecided voters numbers is a function of how the poll is conducted. The responses combine those who say they have made up their mind with those who are leaning toward voting for a particular candidate.
Sebelius is leading in Wichita and western Kansas.
While a Democrat leads in the race for governor, Republican candidates are ahead in the races for attorney general, state treasurer and insurance commissioner.
(I routinely post every poll I can find on the various Governor, Senate and House races around the country. If you'd like to be pinged when I post, please FreepMail me.)
I doubt Sebelius can do that much harm anyway. I believe she is a true liberal at heart but she will not have enough 'rats to help her agenda. On most issues she won't be any worse than Graves has been. On abortion--the issue that seems to dominate--she can't make it MORE legal. She will raise our taxes, you can bank on that. It's her public school and other spending agendas that worry me the most. This is the wrong time for a tax and spend democrat to take control.
What I don't get about voters is that they can vote for Sebelius for Gov. and Kline for AG. How weird is that? Right now I think it's primarily name recognition.
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