For all of you poll-hungry animals out there, who are tired of Don Walton’s phantom suggestions, here is the latest, via the National Journal’s Hotline On Call:
Kleeb Up In One-Day Poll:
A Penn Schoen & Berland (D) poll; conducted 10/29 in NE 03 for rancher (eh, hem —“ranch HAND” – ed.) Scott Kleeb (D); surveyed 404 LVs; margin of error +/- 4.9% (release, 10/30).
Tested: Kleeb and State Sen. Adrian Smith (R).
Note that this was Kleeb’s poll, and as the questions aren’t published, we don’t know if this took in push-type queries or not.
BUT, it’s still a poll that shows that the race is possibly/probably a dead-heat. And, if Don’s further ruminations about the NRCC slapping dollar bills down in the 3rd are correct, the national parties agree that this one is up for grabs.
BUT, it’s still a poll that shows that the race is possibly/probably a dead-heat. And, if Don’s further ruminations about the NRCC slapping dollar bills down in the 3rd are correct, the national parties agree that this one is up for grabs.
p.s.
Not that we have any solid reason to doubt the efficacy of this poll, but we had to chuckle at some of the other matters Kleeb’s pollster has been involved in: Exit-polling for Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and advising Bill Clinton during alleged electioneering in Serbia. Nice track record!
**Update, 10/31/06**
The Cook Political Report has also changed their analysis on this race from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican".
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11 comments:
I would never trust any partisan pollster. Their job is to ask the question in such a way that will give them the result they want to put in a press release, and they aren't so good about getting representative samples either.
If this race is as close as both sides seem to think, why hasn't anyone done a real poll?
Are Rasmusson and Zogby too good for Nebraska? Some of the other competitive races have been polled 6 times or more:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2006/Info/house_polls.html
Thanks for reporting this one where LJS, OWH, etc haven't.
Anytime a candidate will not release the Q&A, it must be assumed that it was a "push poll". Come on "cutey-cowboy" what are ya' afraid of? The big, bad, lifetime Nebraskan. I think this has "Mr. Smith Is Going To Washington" written all over it. Maybe Scotty could use this for the title of the book that he's supposedly writing about politics. It should be a quick read!
Frankly, I think Kleeb looks a little scary in his ads. Something about him just bothers me.
I've followed polls and pollsters closely over the course of the past decade. Can anyone out there name one instance where "they" got it right on election day?
Actually The MSR Group did pretty well on their tracking polls prior to the primary -- which we featured here that week.
We may try to give the breakdown that they had.
Bingo! I recall and agree, SS. MSR was eerily on-game during the Heineman vs Osborne race. It is not lost on me that they are a local firm.
I have long believed and perceived an inherent bias to all polls (MSR excepted) which trends left several percentage points. I wish MSR would poll some of these mid-term races. Their familiarity with the demographic of Nebraska seems to give them a grasp of political reality that others have not demonstrated.
It's my understanding that MSR will not be bothering to do polling on the races that are not perceived as very close (i.e. either of the statewides). I don't know whether or not they'll be doing any polling in the 3rd, or if the 1st is considered close at this point.
A totally bogus poll. If Smith is getting more than 20% of the dem vote and Smith winds up splitting the GOP undecideds and holds 70% of teh Rep vote, there is NO WAY Kleeb can win. The numbers don't support his poll. The Republicans outnumber democrats by 100,000 out west. Thus, 70% of the Republicans and 20% of the democrats spell out a landslide for Smith. Tha's not wishful thinking, that's fact. Kleebs poll was evenly weighted and did not take into consideration the heavy Republican majority. This is what politicians do to try and keep their tropops from getting demoralized at the end. As has been said many times, if you are paying for a poll you, you should be able to get the results you want.
Say hey! Thanks for reading Chuck! And don't think we've forgotten about local Omaha politics. We'll be hitting that again after this election thing is over. And don't get us started about that dang biker-bridge thing going up! (mutter mutter mutter)
I do agree that the poll is of little value since we don't know the methodology, but it seems that Mr. Sigerson's analysis is not completely correct. Based on the numbers published, they didn't weight the reps and dems equal. I'm not sure if it is exactly the right distribution, but it does seem to have taken at least some demographics into account.
I think what we can take away from all this is that the race is tightening since the DCCC and the NRCC are both putting money into the race all of a sudden. They each must believe their own polls to some degree.
Kleeb's pollsters picked Hugo Chavez to lose 4 hours before the polls closed in 2004. Too bad they were wrong. Do a little research on Kleeb's pollsters and you might detect hint of a push.
The only poll that matters closes at 7 pm on the 7th. And if the good Nebraskans of the 3rd get out and vote in numbers...Kleeb will be filing a change of address the next day...as Mr. Smith prepares to go to Washington.
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