Conservative poll shows Hurt leading Perriello.

I’m trying to figure out how to get back into the swing of things here after an extraordinarily trying month, but I do want to point out the first reasonable poll in the Fifth District. (And understand that I’m using “reasonable” loosely—this poll was conducted for the American Action Forum, a conservative group, making it inherently suspect.) Their survey shows Rep. Tom Perriello behind challenger Robert Hurt, 49/43. They do not specify the margin of error, but assuming it’s around a reasonable 3%, then they’re tied within the margin. Hurt’s got 75% name recognition, Perriello has 95%.

It’s entirely possible that Perriello is a few points behind Hurt now, given the political climate—these results may well be correct. And I think it’s good news that Hurt’s name recognition is comparatively low, because that gives Perriello a chance to define him. With this poll, I finally feel like this race can be assessed. Let the games begin.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

11 replies on “Conservative poll shows Hurt leading Perriello.”

  1. Do you take no stock in the SurveyUSA poll from a month back nor the PPP poll from way back before the GOP primary? I don’t know if those were respectable polls, but maybe they’re a little bit informative?

  2. Try this link — http://americanactionforum.org/polling-data-house-districts-va05

    Looking at the cross-tabs, there are a few important observations that tell me that this poll is much more accurate than the SUSA poll that showed him with a 20% lead. The SUSA poll had Hurt winning more than 20% of the black vote and about 20% of the liberal vote. Neither one is going to happen in November. This poll shows Hurt getting support from 3% of the black respondents and 7% of the self-described “liberal” respondents.

    Also, among the 49% of the people where jobs are the #1 issue, those folks prefer Tom.

    Also, in this poll we see a gender gap — men favor Hurt 47% to 43%, while women favor Perriello 49% to 41%. It is therefore important that the poll respondents were 50% men, 50% women. In the election, it is likely that more women will vote than men. So a 6% gap, corrected for turnout, should be more like a 5% or a 4% gap.

    In all, a much more accurate poll. I can believe that this race is within the margin of error.

  3. Bubby, did you read the article? The deceased wasn’t college educated. But his bully apparently was.

  4. I’ve been thinking about you and your colleagues over the last few weeks, Waldo. I’m so sorry for your loss.

  5. I was worrying about your “lying low.” Now I know why. I can relate to your boss. Similarly, if I had not been “let go” by a previous employer I may have come to a similar end as your former boss due to the toxic environment cause by the manipulations of a bully that targeted me and spread such malicious propaganda that I was TOTALLY socially isolated from my own department. Luckily my department was small, and the population of other departments I served large, and most of my clients treated me with admiration and respect, and told me my fears of what was happening were well founded, and some of them were in similar situations or had been in the past due to no protective rules/laws against such behavior.

    Sadly, I believe that the current economic climate will lead to further events such as the demise of your boss due to people positioning themselves to appear the most valuable within organizations, especially by manipulating social status, in order to survive cuts, no matter the expense to others. In most cases the bullying will go unchallenged and probably unnoticed. Legislators will be loathe to act due to fears of being accused of stifling business and ironically hurting jobs by doing so.

    A similar end came to a wonderful Bureau of Land Managment researcher, Marlene Braun, in 2005: http://www.workplacebullying.org/targets/impact/braun/braun.html

    Video documenting talking to CT legislators about trying to create a workplace bullying law – http://nojobisworththis.com/archives/134

    And Waldo, your personal quote was also featured in Beverly Peterson’s (The Producer of “There Oughta Be a Law”) blog, website and facebook page as an example of another horrific outcome to workplace bullying:

    http://bullyinworkplace.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/workplace-bullying-tragic-suicide-in-virginia/

    If anybody wants to get political on this and would like some help on bill language, testifying, etc., I have my own story and experience in writing bills, lobbying and testifying on this subject, as well as thousands of pages of legal documents that show my own case’s history and clearly how judicial abuse killed my chance at justice.

    -Chris Gorski
    seekerhiker@hotmail.com

  6. While moving my son into UVA yesterday, I noticed a group of students wearing buttons with Perriello’s picture on it. I got a closer look, and there’s a quote underneath his image:

    “…if you don’t tie our hands, we will keep stealing.” 3/16/2010.

    I can only assume these are being put out by the Hurt campaign. Brilliant!

  7. The shame about that line of attack, I think, is that Perriello was calling for Congress’ hands to be tied. The use of that line by Hurt to present Perriello as doing something wrong is misleading; in fact, Perriello is promoting the same values as those wearing the buttons.

  8. “in fact, Perriello is promoting the same values as those wearing the buttons.”

    With empty words. Perriello proceeded to vote FOR every instance of “stealing” that he was warning us about.

    Tie your own hands, Congressman.

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