Friday, October 10th, 2008...4:19 pm
Good Lord!
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A new poll is out in Bob Lord’s race for congress:
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee today released a new Anzalone Liszt Research poll conducted October 6-8 that shows Bob Lord leading Congressman John Shadegg in the race for Arizona’s 3rd congressional district. The initial head to head between Democrat Bob Lord and Republican John Shadegg is 45 to 44, Libertarian Michael Shoen got 5. The poll surveyed 400 likely voters and has a 4.9% margin of error.
As I said, that Barack Obama is bringing all our candidates down. He’s like poison.
12 Comments
October 10th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Ted,
Your spin is getting weak. Look at the math of the poll results. It makes your statement meaningless based on this Obama polster’s results. You do get flowers for showing a 4 to 9 percent margin of error instead of leaving that detail off.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:22 am
The only ’spin’ in this post was some deliciously biting sarcasm about the now-proven-false conventional wisdom that Barack Obama would hurt down-ticket Dems in red and swing districts. I can’t believe I have to explain that. CD3 is a what? R+9? district. Yes, there’s a 4.9% MOE, but Shadegg should be polling on the outer edges of that MOE, based on past performance. Has he released his own internals that dispute this poll? Has there been any independent polling on this race? I haven’t been following this one all that closely, but if you want to complain about something, mistaking sarcasm for ’spin’ wouldn’t be the way I’d go…
October 11th, 2008 at 5:45 am
I read Sonoran Alliance a lot. There have been pleas from the GOP about helping their candidates…even Shaddegg…who is an incumbent. He should be a safe district.
I predicted before that Shaddegg would win because of the incumbency factor, but that this seat would burn valuable GOP dollars because of Lord’s tough fight. I think I might have been wrong.
I was right about the GOP burning money and energy here, but wrong about Lord…he can win this.
October 11th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Oh…and the most interesting thing of all is that Shaddegg ticked off conservatives in his district for voting for the bail-out…and following McCain.
October 11th, 2008 at 6:14 am
A one percent lead with a 4.9 percent MOE is indeed a tie.
But it’s indicative of something significant.
PS. I live in CD3. I’m voting for Lord (filling out my ballot today, in fact), and I think he can pull this off.
October 11th, 2008 at 9:02 am
4.9 = 4 to 9
Gotta love them conservative math skillz.
October 11th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Hahahaha, thanks Donna, I wondering if I saw that correctly as well.
October 11th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
What is worrying Republicans is that there are many of these kinds of districts all over the country. I’m not talking about the obvious take-over targets– like AZ CD-1, but I’m talking about districts that have been Republican for years and where in any normal year the GOP incumbent (or replacement if the incumbent is leaving, like both of the GOP districts in New Mexico) should already be heading into the barn on cruise control, too far ahead of his underfunded and outmanned opponent to have to worry much.
But that isn’t the case this year. There are literally dozens of districts around the country in which the Republicans should have, but in fact has not put the race away yet. Even if most of them do end up going Republican just the law of averages and local variability suggests that there may be some nasty surprises for the Republicans come election night.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Michael,
Ted is sophisticated enough to realize the lack of value of the DCCC poll. Parties usually run polls at this time to see whether it is wise to dump money in the campaign or not. The spin is simple, neither party will release poll information detrimental to their candidate.
Watch carefully how much money the DCCC dumps in Lord’s campaign with 527 radio, TV and mailers. If the poll results are accurate we should see the DCCC dump a great deal of money on 527 ad’s. The problem is the wording of the poll questions are sometimes such that the Parties can spin the results either way.
These DCCC poll results do not correspond with internal polls from the Shadegg Campaign. If Arizona goes overwhelmingly towards Obama the experts tell us you can see up to a 3 point bump down the ticket.
October 13th, 2008 at 11:07 am
DCCC and 527 groups are two different animals, governed by different rules. The D-trip cannot “dump” money in “527 radio, TV and mailers.” They can pay for those things, and/or 527 groups can pay for those things, but they are not one and the same.
Your original comment merely implored us to look “at the math of the poll results” and did not explain what you meant about this being a partisan poll. I take all partisan polls with a grain of salt, but again, Ted’s delightfully snarky comment was about the ridiculous conventional wisdom earlier in the cycle that Obama would hurt down-ballot candidates. If that was true, Shadegg would be running away with this election.
The DCCC poll may well be an outlier, but I have not seen any other polling that puts the CD-3 race well enough outside the MOE to allow the GOP to breath easy. Research 2000 has the race at 48%-39% Shadegg, with a 5% MOE. This is certainly a more favorable poll for the incumbent (commissioned by DailyKos, no less), but he’s still within the margin here.
Has the incumbent released any recent polling to either support R2000 or dispute Anzalone Liszt (DCCC)? Don’t candidates generally withhold polling data if they are not supportive of the candidate’s position? Again, I haven’t been following this race closely, so I don’t know what Shadegg’s polling says, or if he’s released anything new within the past couple of weeks.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
The money should be pouring in from the Democratic State Federal Account, DNC, DCCC, and various 527s if the race is a dead heat. That is one way to see if the polls are correct.
I look at releasing internal poll data in two ways. 1. To energize your base and volunteers. The flip side is it could allow your opponent to energize their base and volunteers as the underdog 2. to use the data to look at the dynamics of your district and watch for trends, issues and identify those areas that need to be touched or worked in a special way. The latter is my belief as I see no reason to release internal polls and tell the opposition what I know or don’t know. I don’t like to spin these polls as that is transparent and you lose credibility. I am very interested to see how Obama scores among Hispanic voters and if the so called Bradley factor has any effect. I was in California at the time of that election. It wasn’t the color of Mayor Bradley’s skin that lost him that election. It was the fact that there was a gun control proposition on the State ballot. The NRA and the California Pistol and Rifle Club did a fantastic job of GOTV all over the State and especially in Orange County. I remember Bradley pointing this out in his speech when he conceded.
October 15th, 2008 at 12:17 am
NRCC is pulling money from offensive races to defend incumbents, including Shadegg, who represents an R+5.9 district. I guess their internals were also showing a competitive race. And with their limited resources this year, every decision about money this close to election day has got to be meticulous and strategic. I’m sure this wasn’t a decision made lightly.