Posted on 09/28/2002 6:34:09 AM PDT by BlackRazor
Harkin opens up sizable lead over Ganske
By JONATHAN ROOS
Register Staff Writer
09/28/2002
U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin has widened his lead over Republican opponent Greg Ganske over the past three months, according to a Des Moines Register poll that was taken this week as Iowans were learning details of an unfolding campaign controversy.
The Democratic incumbent has opened a 20-percentage-point lead over Ganske, a congressman from Des Moines, in the latest Iowa Poll of likely voters. His lead in late June was 9 points.
Among adults who say they definitely will vote in the Nov. 5 election, 54 percent say they would support Harkin if the election were held now, and 34 percent would back Ganske. The rest would either prefer another candidate or are undecided. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Experts say it's too soon to know whether support for Harkin will be undercut by a Republican-initiated criminal investigation of a Sept. 3 incident in which a former Harkin congressional aide made an audiotape of a Ganske campaign meeting. A Harkin campaign staff member then passed the recording and a transcript along to Kathie Obradovich, a Lee Enterprises newspaper reporter, who gave Ganske's staff a copy. On Friday, Harkin's campaign manager quit, and Harkin said a junior staff member arranged for the taping, which was done by Brian Conley of Des Moines.
The poll did not find significant shifts in opinion during the five-day period that it was taken. Polling began last Saturday, as reports of the taping incident began to surface, and was completed on Wednesday, when Conley acknowledged through his lawyers that he had taped the meeting and shared the recording with the Harkin campaign.
Steffen Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University, said it's unlikely the eavesdropping controversy would make much of an immediate impression on voters. What is important is the long-term impact, he said.
Hard-core Republicans will be convinced Harkin is not trustworthy, while hard-core Democrats will believe Harkin is under attack, Schmidt said.
That leaves the voters who are undecided or just leaning toward one candidate. Most of those voters don't follow every detail of an evolving scandal, but are left with an overall impression that something wrong has happened, Schmidt said.
For Harkin, "his campaign appears to be the aggressor, the offender here," said Schmidt. "Harkin is going to have a hard time getting that deleted from people's hard drives."
J. Ann Selzer, the Register's pollster, said it will take Iowans some time to sort out the controversy, which "has kind of flopped both ways," so it's not surprising that the poll did not detect any significant opinion swings this week.
Selzer said it would probably take a "smoking gun" revelation or a clear showing there has been a pattern of "dastardly deeds" by a candidate to produce a huge opinion shift.
Poll participant Stuart Fischer, a 41-year-old Republican from Le Mars who plans to vote for Ganske, said Thursday night he's fed up with the negative campaigning in the bruising Senate race and warns that the taping incident could hurt both candidates.
"I think it was kind of a setup, but it's one of those things you read and hear about and wonder," Fischer said. "I don't think either side is going to come out smelling like a rose in that situation."
Patricia Blakesley, a 54-year-old Democrat from Manchester, said her support for Harkin is firm. She believes Ganske has overreacted to the taping incident.
"I am really not happy about the campaign that either of the candidates is running," said Blakesley, a homemaker. "A lot of voters just want them to talk about the issues and not about each other."
The new Iowa Poll shows 27 percent of likely voters who support Ganske and 25 percent of those who back Harkin could still be persuaded to vote for another candidate in the Senate contest.
Harkin's lead over Ganske has fluctuated considerably. Last December the Iowa Poll showed the Democratic incumbent outdistancing his Republican challenger by 23 percentage points in a hypothetical matchup. Ganske fended off a challenge from Bill Salier to win the Republican nomination in the June 4 primary. The victory may have given Ganske a bounce in the late June Iowa Poll, which showed Harkin leading Ganske, 50 percent to 41 percent.
Ganske also was a mystery to much of the Iowa electorate at that point. Said Selzer: "You had people saying they would vote for him who did not know him." As more people have focused on the race and the candidates have waged dueling ad campaigns, overall perceptions of Ganske have turned more negative.
In the new poll, 28 percent of likely voters say they don't know enough about Ganske to say how they feel about him. That's down from 45 percent in June. Among those who do have an opinion, 51 percent say they have favorable feelings about Ganske and 49 percent look upon him unfavorably. In June, nearly two-thirds of likely voters said they had a favorable opinion of the Republican nominee.
Harkin, still the much better-known candidate, fares better. He is viewed favorably by 67 percent of those likely voters who have an opinion about him. That's a drop of 4 points from June.
Even though it's probably too early for the taping story to have had much affect on the numbers, this poll is very disappointing news. The most recent independent poll had this a 12-point race -- still close enough to have possibly become competitive. At 20 points, I think it's going to be awfully tough for Ganske to get any traction.
Larry Sabato had moved this race into the Toss-Up column on Thursday, after the initial news of the taping story, but I don't see that move as justified yet.
If you want on or off my poll ping list, let me know!
Harkin is a product of the Farm Mafia trying to get their government handouts...
Amazing. What balanced and unbiased coverage! They managed to find the ONE "republican" who thinks Harkin is being set up and quote him. This reporter should be freeped.
I don't for one second believe Harkin's up by 20 points. What could have occurred over the past couple of weeks to double his margin? Nothing. If anything, his 10-12 point margin should be shrinking with all his bad publicity.
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