It is a primary election night in five states (Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma and Vermont), so come and cheer for your favorite teabagger and spend an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some folks will be there early for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 272 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

The winners of Tuesday’s top-two primary for the Washington state Senate race were Sen. Patty Murray (D) and real estate speculator (and perennial candidate) Dino Rossi (R). Little surprise there. Late last week, Washingtonians got a double dose of post-primary polls matching up Murry and Rossi.

Rasmussen released this poll on Thursday showing Murray leading Rossi 48% to 44% in a poll taken the day before (18 Aug). The sample of 750 is large for Rasmussen—their samples are typically 500 likely voters.

On Friday, Survey USA released a poll taken on the 18th and 19th of August, on a sample of 618 likely voters. The results? A stunning 52% to 45% lead for Rossi!

What is going on? First let me wander off-topic for a minute to point out that in my analyses of past elections, I have found both Rasmussen and Survey USA to be pretty good polling firms for head-to-head general elections. Rasmussen has a bad reputation among liberals, but that is mostly based on their presidential approval tracking poll that IS biased slightly in favor of Bush and against Obama (relative to comparable polls) for the seven years that I have been following it. But approval tracking polls are not the same type of poll as a head-to-head election poll, and Rasmussen does just fine with the latter. Survey USA is sometimes dissed as a liberal polling firm by conservatives. Whatever…their track record is pretty good. Going on just the numbers from state polls during to 2008 presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial elections, I can’t really tell Survey USA and Rasmussen apart.

During the 2010 election season, some big differences I see is that Rasmussen has greatly increased the number of statewide polls they do; Survey USA has decreased the number of statewide races polled. I have no idea what to make of it. Anyway, onto the race.

Since these two polls were in the field simultaneously, I’ll simply combine them and do my usual Monte Carlo analysis to determine the relative probabilities of each candidate winning based on these polls. Of the combined 1,368 “votes”, Murray and Rossi got 1,289 of them; 46.6% went to Murray and 47.6% went to Rossi. When we normalize these so that they sum to 100%, Murray gets 49.5% and Rossi gets 50.5%. Even with this relatively large sample size, this is clearly a statistical tie.

After simulating a million elections using the observed frequencies and sample sizes, Murray wins 392,801 simulated elections and Rossi wins 599,396 simulated elections. In other words the two polls suggest Murray has a 39.6% probability of beating Rossi. Here is the distribution of wins:

Objectively, those are the results. But, as a Murray supporter, I am not overly daunted. This graph of the polling in this race shows why:

Notice anything odd?

Both of the Survey USA polls conducted for this race favor Rossi uncharacteristically strongly. Most other polls either tend to favor Murray, or show a very slight advantage to Rossi. That’s odd. In fact, when the first Survey USA poll came out, neither camp believed it. I wonder if the Rossi camp believes it now?

Personally, I’m skeptical about the poll. It seems like something is going wrong for Survey USA. And looking at the cross tabs doesn’t help. As N in Seattle points out in the Horses Ass comment threads:

If you take a look at the very last column in the survey’s crosstabs, you’ll see that they show Murray and Rossi tied in “Metro Seattle”.

Really? Murray and Rossi tied in Metro Seattle? I doubt it. N in Seattle shows why:

Based on the population proportion, I assume that means King/Pierce/Snohomish Counties.

We’re now counting a rather more comprehensive “survey”, the primary election. In those three counties, Patty has 53% of the vote to Dino’s 30%. SUSA is asking us to believe that in the general election:

a) about 10% of Patty’s primary voters will switch to Rossi, and

b) every primary voter who chose someone other than Patty will vote for Dino, and

c) the voters who sat out the primary but will vote in the general election (about 1/4 of the electorate, and more strongly Democratic than primary voters) will follow the same pattern as in a) and b)

All of the above would have to happen in “Metro Seattle” for Dino to tie Patty here. It ain’t gonna happen. In fact, it ain’t even gonna happen in the rest of Democratic western Washington either.

I suspect even Dino Rossi would agree with N’s analysis.

Notice that there are two other fairly recent polls on the graph. The earliest is another Rasmussen poll of 750 likely voters taken on 28th of July, and showed Murray up 49% to 47%. That is pretty close to tied. The second (in blue) is from Public Policy Polling (PPP) taken on 27th of July to the 1st of August on 1,204 registered voters. This poll showed Murray leading Rossi, 49% to 46%.

The PPP poll surveyed both the primary election and the general election, which gives us the chance to do a little accuracy-checking. For the primary, PPP found that Teabagger Clint Didier would get about 10% of the vote, Murray would get 47% and Rossi would get 33%. As of Sunday evening, Diddier is at 12.6%, Murray is 46.4% and Rossi is 33.3%. Pretty much spot on, considering it was taken about 18 days earlier.

One last exercise for your consideration. If we combine all four polls taken within the last month, and do the same Monte Carlo analysis, things turn around. There is a total of 3153 votes for either Murray or Rossi, Murray gets 50.6% of them,and Rossi gets 49.4%. Now, Murray wins 682,212 simulated elections, and Rossi wins 313,150 of them. In other words, these four polls give evidence that Murray would win with a 68.5% probability. And that includes the Survey USA poll! Here is the distribution…

The take-home message is that the contest, at this point, is pretty close. But I think the more interesting question that arises from all this is…what the hell happened to Survey USA?!?

(Cross-posted at Hominid Views.)

(And there are links to some 45 other media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

It is a primary election night in Washington State. So please drop off your ballot and then join us for an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some folks will be there early for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 276 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Via West Seattle Blog:

[The following] video is getting West Seattle a bit of national attention tonight in the ongoing controversy over Target’s donation to a Minnesota candidate with a history of opposing gay rights. The musical protest took place in the Westwood Village Target store on Saturday, apparently around 11 am

It is election night in Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota and Georgia, and there’s a lot of teabaggery at stake. So please join us for an evening of electoral politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some folks will be there early for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 276 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

(And there are about 50 more links to the past week in political media at Hominid Views.)

By now it’s a familiar pattern to those who really pay attention. Rep. Reichert (WA-08) equivocates on an issue. He refuses to take a stand on an issue that anyone can really pin to him. And then he votes against the interests of his district—and hopes nobody notices.

This time it is about big oil. Reichert recently voted against the CLEAR Act, that was in response to the BP gulf catostrophy. The act got rid of the $75 million oil spill liability cap and revamped Federal oversight of the offshore oil industry.

And…

…[i]n addition to a number of Gulf Coast restoration and research programs, the bill also fully funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) at $900 million, using money generated from oil and gas drilling royalties, and closes a loophole that exempts oil and gas projects from the storm-water runoff regs under the Clean Water Act. Another major onshore reform is the removal of “categorical exclusions” used to exempt some drilling applications from environmental review on public lands.
[…]

“Americans will be asking, ‘Will Senators stand with the people or the polluters?’” Todd Keller, senior manager of Public Lands Campaigns for National Wildlife Federation, said in a release.

We now know where Reichert Stands…with the polluters.

This is precisely the type of vote that Reichert could have used to make a bold statement in favor of his more-environmentally-aware-than-average constituents. Hell…he could have used this vote to do a little damage control following his embarrassing semi-private statement about pandering to the environmentalists. Instead, he voted with the Party of NO!™ (ideas) and against the interests of his constituents. Apparently, Republican obstructionism is more important to Reichert.

Fortunately, Reichert is pretty much impotent as a legislator—the act passed in the House without any acts of courage on Reichert’s part.

Goldy is on the East Coast and I am at a family reunion in the Midwest, but please join a friendly group of Seattle-area liberals, progressives, radicals, and commie pinkos tonight for a Tuesday evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. (Talk about a run-on sentence!) We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some folks will be there even earlier to enjoy dinner before the political fireworks begin.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 286 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

(And there are links to some 40 more media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

Please join us tonight for another Tuesday evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some of us will be there even earlier.

Note to Bill-O: That’s Dr. Madam to you!

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 309 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Please join us tonight for another Tuesday evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Some of us will be there even earlier.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 312 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Please join us tonight for another Tuesday evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by earlier and join some of us for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 328 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

(And there are 45 more clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)