Posted on 11/02/2002 8:25:01 PM PST by BlackRazor
Gazette-TV9 Poll: Harkin Likely Will Get Reelected
Saturday, November 02, 2002, 10:08:07 PM
A new Gazette/KCRG-TV9 Poll shows Tom Harkin may keep his job as one of Iowa’s U.S. Senators.
Gazette Communications randomly called a little more than 1,000 registered voters. In the U.S. Senate race, 47 percent said they’d vote for Tom Harkin. 30 percent said they’d support republican challenger Greg Ganske. Although the undecided voters make up nearly 16 percent of those responding, the poll concludes it’s not likely to be enough for Ganske to close the gap.
Political Analyst Peverill Squire agrees, “Ganske's a credible challenger who's run a pretty hard campaign against Harkin but Harkin's pretty well known and it's difficult to shake a lot of people's belief in him.”
Iowa Green Party candidate Tim Harthan and Libertarian Party candidate Richard Moore both garnered 1.4 percent of support from those polled.
The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent.
The Gazette/TV9 Poll also covers the US House and Governor’s races in Iowa. You can read all the results in detail in Sunday’s Gazette, Iowa City Gazette, the Dubuque Telegraph Herald and the Quad City Times. TV9 will also have more coverage of the poll on our Sunday newscasts and here on KCRG.com
If you want on or off my poll ping list, let me know!
I wouldn't vote for my mother if I saw her act as disgracefully as did Harkin at Wellstones's clown circus.
Here's ONE vote against him, anyway!
Interesting that they didn't do a scientific poll and call "Likely Voters", rather than all those registered folks who only vote in Presidential years.
Within the last week I read an article here with an analysis of poll numbers,,, it said something about "if the incumbant is under 50% and the undecideds are more than 10% the incumbant is TOAST". Does anyone else remember reading this article, or understand how they figure the odds in a situation like this?
It is conventional wisdom that undecided voters tend to split about 2-to-1 for the challenger. That is why an incumbent who polls under 50% this close to an election is considered vulnerable. I am currently analyzing past poll data to determine the validity of this rule of thumb.
For this particular poll, Harkin leads 47-30 with 16% undecided. If those 16% split 2-to-1 in favor of Ganske, then Harkin would end up winning the election about 52.3 to 40.7.
I'm on the ground. Last night at the Bus Rally with Grassley, Ganske, & Gross and other statewides, they were saying we are within striking distance.
Rudi Gulliani was in Cedar Rapids this morning with Jim Leach, J.C. Watts was in Waterloo this morning with Ganske,, Watts and Gulliani did the tailgate thing before the Iowa Wisconsin game with Leach in tow.
Laura Bush was in Ankeny this morning with somebody, Cheney was in Western Iowa on Friday with Ganske,, and GW will be in Cedar Rapids on Monday with Ganske, Gross & Leach.
They are hoping for enough bounce to make it work.
Back in early summer, Harkin only led by about 9 points, which isn't all that great for an entrenched incumbent. With the right campaign, that number could have closed as Ganske improved his name ID statewide. Unfortunately, it never happened. It didn't hurt that with the Democrats being in control of the Senate, Harkin chairs the Agriculture Committee. In my opinion, that pretty much sealed this race.
Is there a source for those numbers, or are they based on your own research? How does the partisan makeup of a state influence the challenger's percentage of the split, if at all?
I suspect this poll will turn out to be flawed. I really think the internal rolling polls are showing Greg to be in single digets.
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