Rasmussen has just released their July poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 500 people shows Governor Christine Gregoire (D) leading Dino Rossi (GOP-Party) 49% to 43%.
(Oddly enough, I was one of the 500 randomly selected Washington state voters who was called and chose to participate in this poll.)
The +6% spread in this poll shows the race tightening slightly from the +9% found in the late June Elway poll, but better than the +3.5% found in an early June SurveyUSA poll, and on par with the +7% found in last month’s (early June) Rasmussen poll.
As usual, I use a Monte Carlo analysis to estimate the probability that Gregoire would win if the election were held now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 500 voters each, where each person had a 49% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 43% chance of voting for Rossi and a 8% chance of voting for neither.
Gregoire won 900,804 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 90,599 times. This suggests that Gregoire has something like a 90.9% chance of beating Rossi (if the election were held now) and Rossi has a 9.1% probability of winning. A statistician would point out that Gregoire’s lead in this poll is within the margin of error (i.e. her probability of winning is less than 95%).
Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections:
Blue bars are wins for Gregoire and red bars are Rossi wins.
This current poll makes this the ninth consecutive poll in which Gregoire has led Rossi. It is highly unlikely that Gregoire’s lead is due to chance (sampling error).
Rasmussen also polled a head-to-head match-up between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. Obama lead McCain 48% to 39%. Tomorrow I’ll provide my usual Monte Carlo analysis of the presidential election that incorporates the new Rasmussen poll.
Am I correct in assuming they called you on a land line?
The favorable/unfavorable ratings in the Rasmussen poll are certainly interesting:
1* How do you rate the way that Christine Gregoire is performing her role as Governor? Excellent, good, fair, or poor?
21% Excellent
23% Good
22% Fair
34% Poor
1% Not Sure
3* Favorables for Gubernatorial Candidates
Gregoire
Very Favorable 26%
Somewhat Favorable 30%
Somewhat Unfavorable 17%
Very Unfavorable 25%
Not sure 2%
Rossi
Very Favorable 26%
Somewhat Favorable 24%
Somewhat Unfavorable 20%
Very Unfavorable 25%
Not sure 5%
As for job performance, Gregoire’s unfavorables (fair & poor) are at 56%, and her favorables (excellent & good) are at only 44%. Moreover, nearly everyone has an opinion!
You might think this would hurt Gregoire, but evidently voters think Rossi would do at least a bit worse overall, since Gregoire beats Rossi by 49% to 43% when people are asked who they would vote for Governor.
But when it comes to personal likeability, people actually like Gregoire, even though many of them don’t like her job performace. Gregoire has a net favorable in likeability of 56% to 42%, while Rossi’ net personal favorables are a somewhat smaller net of 50% to 45%.
While Gregoire could seek to prove her election polling numbers by bashing Rossi, it might be more effective to work on public perception of Gregoire’s job performance as Governor. In addition, since voters tend to find Gregoire more charming than Rossi, a more personal and public approach to campaigning by Gregoire could also help boost the polling numbers.
I’ll state the obvious…As long as Gregoire’s numbers continue to mirror Obama’s in the state, Rossi hasn’t got a chance.
Good thing too, I mean who wants a member of the Soprano crime family for governor?
I’m not normally a big fan of your blog, but this is a great analysis. Props!
Upton @3
I hope you’re right, but she was a lot closer than Kerry here in WA 4 years ago. Leads at the top of the ticket certainly don’t hurt, but a lot can still happen.
The responses to the oil drilling questions, which were contained in the presidential poll, are also interesting:
5* … Should drilling be allowed in offshore oil wells off the coasts of California, Florida, and other states?
48% Yes
41% No
10% Not sure
6*If drilling in offshore oil wells is allowed, how likely is it that the price of gas will go down?
15% Very likely
30% Somewhat likely
30% Not very likely
19% Not at all likely
6% Not sure
7*A proposal has been made to allow oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge? Do you favor or oppose this proposal?
42% Favor
47% Oppose
11% Not sure
The offshore drilling question specifically mentioned California and Florida as possible drilling locations. I think if Washington had been included as a possible state for offshore drilling, instead of being narrowly favored, that question would have provoked even more opposition than drilling in the Alaskan National Wildfire Reserve.
In any event, 48% of the people supporting having more offshore drilling, while only 45% of the people thought it would result in lower gas prices. The other 3% knew that it won’t reduce gas prices at all — they either work for an oil company, or own stock in one.
That old guy who was killed was a good little liberal. No concealed weapon on city property! That is how we like it. Makes writing out the report that much easier.
This is good news for Gregoire since the poll was taken after the Rossi campaign, i.e. BIAW, started their media blitz associating Gregoire with the Sonics departure. Of course, if she had agreed to Shultz’s demands they would have jumped all over her for raising taxes and spending money. So she may well survive this.
Polls this early don’t matter but in any event, I don’t need a poll to see the mood of the state. CG will win handily this time and she’ll need to since the right wing turds will be trying to place every possible illegal vote they can while illegally trying to keep lawful voters from getting to the polls since low turnout is their only chance.
Michael,
“Am I correct in assuming they called you on a land line?”
Correct. At the time they called my home phone, I was in the middle of writing a post about another Rasmussen poll. I did the aural equivalent of double-take when the computer announced it was Rasmussen Reports calling.
Darryl–
Not clear to your many readers that the 9-point O-blah-blah lead is in Washington State–
Nationally, it is 1-point (margin of error)
This is from Rasmussen–
Friday, July 11, 2008
The race for the White House is getting a bit closer. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows Barack Obama’s lead over John McCain down to a statistically insignificant single percentage point, 43% to 42%. Prior to today, Obama had enjoyed at least a four-point advantage every day since Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race over a month ago. This is the first time his support has fallen below the 45% level since May 31.
When “leaners” are included, Obama leads 47% to 45%.
As for Gregoire/Rossi–
The $2.7 BILLION Budget Deficit situation SHE created for the next Biennium by overspending while hard-working Washingtonians were belt-tightening has yet to be publicly vetted. Almost zero MSM news discussion.
I look for those #’s to worsen as the economy tightens. She still hasn’t acknowledged it as serious…trying to pooh-pooh it as “just a projection”. Won’t work.
The election is still nearly 4 months away.
She can’t dodge accountability for her spending ways, giving away potential revenue from the tribes etc.
12 Cyn
Cynical, our budget is balanced with a nearly $800 million surplus.
Others: The source from which Cynical is imagining his state budget “deficit” is pretty surely (koff, *SoundPolitics*, koff) the state’s June Six-Year Outlook budget forecast.
In it, this year’s surplus is assumed to be $359 million, but in reality it is going to be $774 million. His numbers are simply incorrect, as my citations (and his lack thereof) show. As for the rest, it depends on assumptions about the growth of medical costs, population growth, and so on.
Given that the state MUST balance the budget each year, and as we do in other years when the economy is on downward trend, we’ll bring it into balance when the legislature meets for the next year’s session.
CNN’s “poll of polls” shows Barack Obama with a solid lead at 48%-42%.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITI.....lls.chart/
BTW, Cynical, isn’t it true that the Legislature both writes and passes all of the state’s budget appropriations?
After all, that was the sole basis Republicans had to give Dino Rossi credit for doing his first honest day’s work crafting the budget back in the 2003 session, right? Heck, dinorossi .com says:
But… if Governor Gregoire is totally responsible for this year’s budget, then Gary Locke was too in 2003, and that means that Dino Rossi didn’t do shit as a legislator and is thus totally unqualified to be Governor, right?
So much for that blizzard of negative advertising over the past month on this race.
I suspect that given the hisotry of Rossi and Gregoire, along with four years of sour grapes spewing from the Rossi camp, a lot of voters simply discount all the negative stuff as more of the same.
This suggests that the way to win is to communicate in a different tone – we could use some good natured humor in this race.
The first candidate to score on that point will show gains, and no one needs the likable factor more than Ma Gregoire right now.
Remember when a lying bitch like CynCyn (who is actually just a sex offender in the trustee unit at McNeil Island) tells you there’s a deficit in Washington, there are two things to think about…
1) It’s a lie – there is no deficit and there cannot be. The State Constitution prohibits it
2) You should think about the REAL deficit that matters. The FEDERAL deficit impacts all 50 states and it was created by the republican president and the republican congress that for six years voted for every republican spending bill that came by creating THE LARGEST US DEFICIT IN HISTORY!
Gregoire should have & could have called an emergency session and implemented HIRING and SPENDING freezes…just like families do.
Instead, she is waiting until the next biennium to deal with the forecast deficit.
Good luck trying to dodge that upcoming deficit without a plan to present voters.
Won’t work.
She has blown it overspending based on a short-term bubble. Just like some folks who took out home equity loans, spend on frivilous stuff and are now “whining” that house prices dropped.
39 year Career Government Bureaucrats need to be retired to the sidelines.
CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE!
Isn’t that what you KLOWNS have been preaching??
It’s good to see you link to Rasmussen to prove your point.
My turn.
Obama holds a statistically insignificant 47% to 46% advantage. So says Rasmussen.
Hey Richard Pope, when are you going to thank those of us who made contributions to your campaign?
An interesting view into the sample of the Rasmussen poll lies in the crosstabs’ partisan breaks:
Republicans, Rossi leads 90-9
Democrats,Gregoire leads 87-7
Independents,Rossi leads 47-36
Yet she maintains a 6 point lead.
Marvin Stamm,
“It’s good to see you link to Rasmussen to prove your point.”
Oh?? And what point was I trying to “prove”? The Monte Carlo analyses are party-blind, and I would have done this post whether Gregoire or Rossi was leading. (For example, see this poll analysis.)
“[blah blah blah] So says Rasmussen.”
Pretty fucking hilarious that you are reduced to taking solace in your candidate being only 1% behind in a poll. Just ignore that this is the 23 poll in a row that McCain has been behind Obama. Oh…that and the two newer polls have Obama up by +4% and +3%.
You fuckin’ wingnuts are simply precious in your ability to suspend reality and common sense for your ideology.