In today’s Washington Post, Michael Shear and Claudia Deane have a front-page story about the latest Post poll, which shows Lt. Governor Tim Kaine polling at 47%, three points above Jerry Kilgore’s 44%. (The complete results are available as a 157k PDF.) With a MoE of 3%, they can only be said to be tied. However, this is the fourth of the five most recent polls that has shown Kaine to be leading, so there’s no reason to suspect otherwise.
Naturally, the Kilgore campaign is upset about this poll. So they’ve attacked the Washington Posthaving started doing so via blog surrogates two days ago. The trouble is that there’s only one complaint made by campaign manager Ken Hutcheson that’s about he poll itself, and it’s a humdinger:
The poll was conducted on Sunday through Wednesday of this past week. A quick glance back reveals that on early Sunday afternoon when the poll began, the Washington Redskins were playing a home game televised across the entire Commonwealth, the Martinsville NASCAR race was being televised and many families were still in church. The poll concluded its interviews on Wednesday night, another big night for church attendance in rural Virginia.
Democrats, Hutcheson assumes, neither go to church nor watch football. Hutcheson is asserting that a poll that stretches over four days cannot be considered valid if some portion of the electorate is not answering their phone for a period of a few hours. He has failed to list the frequency with which Virginians urinate, the time that they spend having sex (only in the missionary position, natch), and the high-larious effects of this week’s rural breakout hit, “My Name is Earl.”
The Kilgore campaign must be some kind of upset to be polling so low, and I can appreciate the need to flail, but I can’t see why guys like Ken Hutcheson would want to go burning bridges like this. He’ll presumably live in Virginia for a long time, and continue to work in politics. Why accuse the newsroom of the Washington Post of colluding with their editorial department and a crooked polling firm? He’s a smart guy — I can’t understand why he’d want to go and make his life difficult for years down the line to score cheap political points.
Actually, screaming liberal media has worked very well for Republicans.
OK – it was kind of wimpering.
A consistent maxim throughout history is that to not learn from history is foolish.
In this case the history is very clear: In the previous three VA gubernatorial elections, the Washington Post has understated in their polls the actual vote for the Republican candidate by an average of 6.66%.
I do my best to not be a fool.
I don’t know if the WaPo’s bias toward Tim Kaine (or the other Democrats in previous races) caused the inaccurate polling or not. It could simply be an inherent characteristic of the way conservative constituents take (or don’t take) polls. All that I’m saying is that the trend, intentional or not, is consistent and clear.
Hans, you’re probably right. I don’t trust this poll either. I’ve made a ton of GOTV calls this week, when i ask which candidate they plan on voting i get responses like this:
Half the time it’s:
“Kaine has my support 100%”
The other half of the time it’s:
“i’d rather not say” (these could all be republicans for all i know)
Of course, 6 of the 300+ people i’ve talked to in the last week said:
“i’ll probably vote for Kilgore”
So i took 10 minutes to chat politics with them and 6 out of 6 of those people ended the call with:
“Kaine sounds like a much stronger candidate, i may vote Democratic this year”
You’re probably right. Kaine is probably still 3-4 points below Kilgore. Republicans probably just don’t answer the polls. I think Democrats need to get their asses into the Democratic Headquarters and pledge to make a 100 calls this week. Then the WP poll might turn out to be right. Otherwise i think Kaine is not out of the doghouse yet.
This blame the messenger game is pathetic. Kilgore has lied. Repeatedly. The guy is not exactly an Eagle Scout, ok? He makes up stuff ALL THE TIME! And, when he gets caught, he blames the people who reveal his lie. Pretty sad.
The problem here is not the newspaper reporters — the problem is the candidate.
Look at it this way: if a morbidly obese person gets on a weight scale and then blames the nurse and doctor for the situation, to the point of accusing them of being in collusion with one another and with the scale itself — who is in the right and who is in the wrong?
This close to the election, I don’t really like to get into polling debates; I figure it’s best if we say where we stand and leave it at that. We’re all going to know the real opinion of the electorate so soon that it hardly seems worth the trouble to debate. :)
I know a lot of people keep saying (whining in my opinion) that the Washington Post polls are biased. What they don’t realize is that a polling firm is doing the polling for them, not the people in the editorial room who have the liberal slant. Not only that people are not in the polling business to get things wrong. When peope pay high amounts for these polls they expect to get what they pay for, accurate results. Otherwise they are out of a job. People keep crying about the Washington Post poll but they never mentione that for one the Washington Post polls of the 2004 election said Bush would win and two the Washington Post poll is just one of many polls that recently show Kaine ahead, although within the margin of error. I should expect this though. I guess polls are right so long as your side is winning.
This is just sad. In 2001, for instance, they did not poll this late in the race when things invariably tighten up because the conclusion was foregone. Mark Early was a much worse candidate than Kilgore, if possible. He had nothing to say, and he had a really grating personality. He was just destroyed in the televised debate. Pathetic performance. I think from all the polling we have seen, this poll certainly is very consistent with the others, and at the very least it shows the momentum is with Kaine in a dead heat. Kilgore very well could win this race, as the poll he is attacking clearly indicates, but this sort of maneuvre reveals a flailing campaign. You never attack the polls. You pretend not to be interested in polls while conducting your own internal polls around the clock. Has the Rove machine taught these guys nothing?
Hans said:
“A consistent maxim throughout history is that to not learn from history is foolish.”
Hans, I am glad to hear you have seen the light and will be voting for Kaine. No one could blame you. Who would want to relive the Gilmore malaise of huge deficits and broken promises, when we could continue the rapid economic expansion and secure Virginia’s future? Bravo, my friend, you are not a fool after all!
Are we to understand that Republicans don’t answer their telephones while absorbed in a televised ball game or car race? I was riveted by the World Series in ’04, when the Red Sox were playing, but I answered my telephone. (But then, I’m a Democrat…)
Steve, if you’re making GOTV calls, and only 50% of the respondents are expressing support for Kaine, then y’all have a serious problem. Either somebody gave you a poorly crafted list of targeted Democratic voters, in which case you wasted a lot of your time, or your base is apathetic.
I made GOTV calls for a Democratic HoD primary in June, and 100% of the respondents supported my candidate (meaning I was using a great call list). The only issue was whether they planned to go vote in the primary.
Hey if this makes you guys feel any better both my mom and aunt got a phone call from a pollster but the kids answered the phone and told them their parents weren’t there (they assumed they were telemarketers.) They yelled “mom it was just some polling people.” This was a couple days ago so maybe its for another poll that will be released in the coming days. In case you are wondering they are staunch Democrats and vote in every election, including primaries.
Frankly, I do not believe we’ll know the real opinion of the electorate until Virginia finally gets Verfified Voting complete with a paper trail. We have a bill running through the system now, HB 1549, that would require paper verification, but not until January 1, 2007!!!
It is interesting to note that on this important STATE issue, many candidates for state office have not even responded to a poll on how they feel about verified voting, including candidate Jerry Kilgore. Is he too lazy, or is he against verified ballots?
‘Steve, if you’re making GOTV calls, and only 50% of the respondents are expressing support for Kaine, then y’all have a serious problem.”
Actually, this is pretty standard for a list that includes African Americans. Generally, Republicans in Virginia spend significant amounts of time calling African Americans to tell them the wrong date for the election or otherwise harrassing them. Many in the community are hence exceptionally wary about saying anything about how they vote.
A sad reality of Virginian politics.
Geoff, that’s such a crock it’s hardly worth commenting on, but I’m compelled to straighten you out. The primary for which I did GOTV calls was for an overwhelmingly African American district. Every single person I spoke to had no hesitation in telling me that they support the candidate (an African American Democrat) for whom I was calling.
Also, I’ve done lots of calling for Republican candidates for the past 20 years, and have never heard or seen anything remotely like what you claimed.
But since you read something like that at RK or Kos, it must be true, right?