Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Good news? Or just local See-BS?
H/T to Aaron at HubPolitics.
Local See-BS affiliate (CBS-4, Boston) political reporter Jon Keller - widely regarded as a good, pretty-smart sort of chap - is practically breathless in his reporting of a new poll showing that the Massachusetts race for Governor between Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, independent Christy Mihos, and the survivor of the Democrat Primary between Tom Reilly and Deval Patrick to be far tighter than once thought and that Mihos' support may be far greater (at first) than anyone (certainly I) thought possible.
Of course everyone in the campaign has their own spin on the numbers so I will ignore that part of the story, except to point out that some of the numbers are pretty good news for Ms. Healey. That said, I have to admit there is something in the numbers that simply doesn't look right to me. The SurveyUSA (again, generally thought to be a pretty-good polling outfit) weekend poll of 800 Massachusetts adults included 700 registered voters and it is the results among registered voters upon which I will focus (follow along with the link provided above if you like).
Some things in the poll make more-or-less perfect sense, so let us dispense with them. The first thing I usually look for in a See-BS poll is the partisan breakdown - as the national folks seems to have a real knack for oversampling Democrats. Here however, the 20-39-39 (GOP-DEM-IND) breakdown seems, if not reasonable, then probably a slight over-sample of Republicans and Democrats - with the roughly 2-1 DEM/GOP advantage probably being more than a hint too kind to the GOP. But, remember these are registered voters who were polled - and that almost always brings the percentages back into the GOP's favor. In that regard, the poll may have also slightly oversampled conservatives (21%) and moderates (45%) at the expense of liberals (24%), but then again perhaps not. It's probably a marginal impact on the results.
But then things start to get a little dicey. For one thing, it would appear that the poll rather substantially oversamples young (18-34) voters (27%) while undersampling those 65+ (19%). If true, that would be bad news for Healey as that group represents one of her stronger voting bases - particularly against Patrick - but this result is also somewhat surprising.
Another oddity is that Healey polls far better with Blacks (29%), Hispanics (43%) and other minorities (37%) against Patrick - the only minority candidate in the race at the moment - than she does against the snow-white Attorney General (19%, 29% and 17%, respectively). Additionally, against Patrick the Lt. Governor polls a whopping 42% among younger voters only to crater to 29% with the 35-49 cohort - precisely the voting block a Republican should do well in even someplace like Massachusetts. The numbers in these age cohorts for Healey against Reilly are 32% and 25%, respectively.
Curiouser and curiouser.
The final curiosity is that Mihos is polling at approximately 20% in both polls - which frankly I see as his ceiling and not his floor.
As for why Patrick seems to have lost ground to Healey in this poll (previous polls had Patrick ahead slightly)? Well, Aaron seems to think this has to do with the revelations about Patrick's financial problems:
Frankly, I think that is more than a bit of a stretch. I mean, Patrick's foibles were nothing compared to Reilly's running-mate kerfuffle and the Worst Attorney General in the Nation appears to be none the worse for that.
Again, curiouser and curiouser.
Still, one cannot conclude a story on a poll of this nature without clearly stating the obvious caveat - it's March, for Heaven's sake. You probably cannot find more than 1-in-4 Massachusetts voters who even know there is an election for Governor this year, much less who is running. As such, and as always, it's safe to take this poll for so many grains of salt.
But just in case the Lt. Governor's campaign is listening - y'all had best get busy with that 35-49 cohort or you have precisely NO CHANCE come November.
Local See-BS affiliate (CBS-4, Boston) political reporter Jon Keller - widely regarded as a good, pretty-smart sort of chap - is practically breathless in his reporting of a new poll showing that the Massachusetts race for Governor between Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, independent Christy Mihos, and the survivor of the Democrat Primary between Tom Reilly and Deval Patrick to be far tighter than once thought and that Mihos' support may be far greater (at first) than anyone (certainly I) thought possible.
Of course everyone in the campaign has their own spin on the numbers so I will ignore that part of the story, except to point out that some of the numbers are pretty good news for Ms. Healey. That said, I have to admit there is something in the numbers that simply doesn't look right to me. The SurveyUSA (again, generally thought to be a pretty-good polling outfit) weekend poll of 800 Massachusetts adults included 700 registered voters and it is the results among registered voters upon which I will focus (follow along with the link provided above if you like).
Some things in the poll make more-or-less perfect sense, so let us dispense with them. The first thing I usually look for in a See-BS poll is the partisan breakdown - as the national folks seems to have a real knack for oversampling Democrats. Here however, the 20-39-39 (GOP-DEM-IND) breakdown seems, if not reasonable, then probably a slight over-sample of Republicans and Democrats - with the roughly 2-1 DEM/GOP advantage probably being more than a hint too kind to the GOP. But, remember these are registered voters who were polled - and that almost always brings the percentages back into the GOP's favor. In that regard, the poll may have also slightly oversampled conservatives (21%) and moderates (45%) at the expense of liberals (24%), but then again perhaps not. It's probably a marginal impact on the results.
But then things start to get a little dicey. For one thing, it would appear that the poll rather substantially oversamples young (18-34) voters (27%) while undersampling those 65+ (19%). If true, that would be bad news for Healey as that group represents one of her stronger voting bases - particularly against Patrick - but this result is also somewhat surprising.
Another oddity is that Healey polls far better with Blacks (29%), Hispanics (43%) and other minorities (37%) against Patrick - the only minority candidate in the race at the moment - than she does against the snow-white Attorney General (19%, 29% and 17%, respectively). Additionally, against Patrick the Lt. Governor polls a whopping 42% among younger voters only to crater to 29% with the 35-49 cohort - precisely the voting block a Republican should do well in even someplace like Massachusetts. The numbers in these age cohorts for Healey against Reilly are 32% and 25%, respectively.
Curiouser and curiouser.
The final curiosity is that Mihos is polling at approximately 20% in both polls - which frankly I see as his ceiling and not his floor.
As for why Patrick seems to have lost ground to Healey in this poll (previous polls had Patrick ahead slightly)? Well, Aaron seems to think this has to do with the revelations about Patrick's financial problems:
Even with Reilly's running-mate blues and cover-up scandals, he is still hanging in there, while Deval Patrick's financial squabbles, including tax delinquency and a shady mortgage, seem to have turned the tables in the race between him and Healey.
Frankly, I think that is more than a bit of a stretch. I mean, Patrick's foibles were nothing compared to Reilly's running-mate kerfuffle and the Worst Attorney General in the Nation appears to be none the worse for that.
Again, curiouser and curiouser.
Still, one cannot conclude a story on a poll of this nature without clearly stating the obvious caveat - it's March, for Heaven's sake. You probably cannot find more than 1-in-4 Massachusetts voters who even know there is an election for Governor this year, much less who is running. As such, and as always, it's safe to take this poll for so many grains of salt.
But just in case the Lt. Governor's campaign is listening - y'all had best get busy with that 35-49 cohort or you have precisely NO CHANCE come November.
# posted by Doc J @ 2:43 PM 
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