Public Policy Polling has a new poll in the statewide primaries. (FWIW, don’t recognize this outfit’s name.) They’ve got Brian Moran at 22%, Terry McAuliffe at 18%, and Sen. Creigh Deeds at 15%, all in a 3.6% MoE. The interesting bits are that McAuliffe maintains a huge level of unfavorable ratings (29% to Moran’s 15% and Deeds’ 12%), and he’s actually upside down among 18-29 voters, with a 44% unfavorable rating versus a 36% favorable rating. Deeds is leading among 18-29 year olds, I’m glad to see. But two thirds half of state Democrats still have no idea who they’ll vote for.
Three of the four LG candidates are polling at 4%, with Jody Wagner at 21%. Four percent. Ouch. I mean, it’s early in the race, but still.
Two thirds? I thought the poll showed only 45% undecided.
You’re right, Vivian—it’s 67% who are undecided in the lieutenant governor’s race, not the governor’s race. Thanks!
FWIW, don’t recognize this outfit’s name.
They’re pretty well-established — they were included in 538’s ratings of pollsters in the primaries. However, I don’t know their history of polling Virginia statewide races (if any.)
Interesting. Usually the younger voters shy away from those who have problems with equality. Must be a good messaging operation.
I have a bit of a problem believing both that Creigh is up among 18-29 and that Bowerbank would be running such a strong second in that demographic and not others. Speaking as a member of that demographic, there is no buzz around either of those candidates. Especially for LG, I’ve talked to a ton of young voters and every single one has told me they are supporting Wagner or Signer. The same can’t be said for the gubernatorial, but I’ve still met many more young voters supporting McAuliffe and Moran than Creigh. So color me dubious on the findings of this particular poll.
Though I’m likewise dubious of anybody who says, to cast doubt on a poll, among the people I know or certainly among my friends… Speaking as a member of that demographic (or, rather, a few months older than it, but whatever), I’d conclude based on the people who I know that Creigh is the only candidate in this race. But I live in Charlottesville, and I recognize that my experiences cannot be universalized. What I’d need to do in order to find out the truth is talk to a random sampling of people distributed proportionally around the state. Or, one might say, conduct a poll. :)
I’m not suggesting that we jettison our common sense in favor of a poll’s results, no matter how ludicrous, just that few individuals’ experiences are broad enough to substitute for the results of most polls addressing such a broad audience.
Well, I can’t claim to have spoken to a representative sample of voters aged 18-29, but I’ve been to any number of political events in the Charlottesville region and northern Virginia, and the people who showed up to these events were uniformly either for Jody or Mike. Given how few members of the demographic will likely vote in the primary, i think that fact that the people who show up to events like the Connolly straw poll or the VAYD convention are the people most likely to vote in June. I’m really thinking, here, more of Bowerbank’s showing than Creigh’s, but it makes me think that the poll may be weighing voters from southside and southwestern Virginia more heavily than they should, at least in the 18-29 demographic.
The overall poll’s margin of error is +/- 3.6%, and the margin of error will be even larger for subgroups (since the sample size is smaller), so also I’d caution against drawing too many conclusions from the subgroup results. (I haven’t bothered to learn the math, but hanging around 538.com has taught me a thing or two. :-)
That’s an important point, Jim. I once tried to prove a point about the internals of a Kilgore/Kaine poll, and set about writing a blog entry about how damning that the differences were in regional support of the candidates, given the significant (maybe ~20%?) gap. But I started working the actual numbers, and found that it was based on one person. I deleted the draft and regarded the lost hour as a lesson well learned.
Let’s see, we’ll have approximately 0.04% of that “18-29 year old” demographic voting in the Democratic primary.
Congrats, Creigh, that poll has shown that you will get an extra 17 votes in the primary.