Posted on 09/04/2006 7:26:12 PM PDT by davidosborne
PS. It's worth noting that the Lieberman-Lamont poll was conducted by Lieberman's pollster.
It DID seem amazing. :)
Yes. It appears like someone new has gotten into the polling act. They are an indy polling firm, definitely.
From what it appears, they are using robots to poll much like SUSA and Rasmussen. The one thing that bothers me here is that they're using SUSA's and Rasmussen's showing in 2004 to bolster their own claims of accuracy. Color me unconvinced.
Still, they are partnering with RT Strategies with Tarrance (R) and Riehle (D), who are two good pollsters (esp. Tarrance).
Right now, I have to consider at the uni poll level (in my mind) until more information comes out or until we have an election where we can talk about their results.
Actually, I'm going to remind myself to talk to someone I know on this subject to see if I can find out more about his opinion of the quality of this survey.
Rothenburg's recent column casts doubt on Reichert being behind in polling - I don't believe that result until it is confirmed elsewhere. Rothenburg also said the Dems were not making much progress picking up seats in NY in general. I assume Drake is listed as a tossup for a reason, but I don't imagine other polling has her down 9, if it has her down at all.
I didn't know it was spam to post the same message on more than one thread as long as it was relevent to the thread.. my apologies to ALL who were offended by my posts..
:-} Courtney was ahead in the polls here last time as well. Will he win this time? Dunno. I'm voting for Simmons despite our tacit disagreement on certain issues. He still invites me to his fund raisers and I keep saying no money but you get our votes. My family here in Ct is good for 7 votes so I guess that's something.
The democrats had a brutal 5-candidate race for governor, which was a statewide contest.
Your point is an excellent one and one that I tend to hold myself. Because of the nature of internal polling public releases, I would typically throw out any poll that showed a result better than an internal result for that candidate. Of course, every once in a while, a candidate does release an internal poll that is accurate for his race. For the most part, this is exceeding rare, however.
Of course, a lot of these problems could have to with the summer polling phenomenon that I've noted countless times before. Or maybe the methodology of this new poll is simply in error; without crosstabs it's kind of hard for me to make guesses on this.
I think that Virginia Beach is a much swingier area than commonly thought.
In 2000, Ed Schrock was a very strong candidate running in a positive state and national environment for Republican House candidates. He'd defeated an incumbent in the state legislature by knocking on several thousand doors and was a good match for the district. Yet on Election Day, he only narrowly beat a Jewish woman Democrat with a strong base in Virginia Beach. It was one of those outcomes that makes you wonder what happened after the fact, because Republicans did so well in more competitive races everywhere else aside from California.
When Thelma Drake went to Washington, her seat in the House of Delegates went Democrat in a special election. And although there is limited applicability of state races to federal, this area did go big for Kaine. I've read that Kellam has a strong base in Virginia Beach with a good family name, while Drake is from across the water in Norfolk, a small part of this district.
I'm struggling to find a good parallel for this district elsewhere in the country, but it is not your standard southern coastal conservative seat. Kerry's abysmal showing may have indicated a distaste for northeast liberals more than for the Democrat label.
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