The most polled gubernatorial race in the country this election season, hands down, is Washington state. The rematch between Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”) and Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) has had 36 polls taken, starting in August of 2005, just two months after a court declined to overturn Gregoire’s victory.
And now we have one new SurveyUSA poll to add to the collection. The poll of 714 people, taken on the 11th and 12th of August, shows Gregoire leading Rossi by a slim 50% to 48%.
The +2% advantage for Gregoire is smaller than the +4% found a week ago in a Rasmussen poll. It is much smaller than the +12% found in a late July Strategic Vision poll. But it matches the +2% found by a late July Strategic Vision poll.
That makes four polls all taken within the last three weeks. As can be seen in this figure of polling over the last three months, the race has scarcely moved provided one ignores those Elway polls.
Mr. Elway has offered a defense of his poll numbers, perhaps in response to a somewhat “underinformed” Eric Earling commentary. Elway discusses sampling differences (registered, known voters versus random digit dialing used by national pollsters), different modes of communications (humans used by Elway versus computer used by SurveyUSA and Rasmussen), question wording, and party identification (Elway uses the Washington state ballot labels). I think Elway’s arguments are all reasonable, and given Elway’s smaller sample size, I am not surprised to see this magnitude of difference between Elway compared to Rasmussen and SurveyUSA. Still, I’m not going to declare that Elway is “right” and the others are “wrong.” There is simply no way to know which pollsters have (statistical) bias until one can observe the performance against a number of actual elections. My preferred strategy is to take ’em all, and combine multiple polls that are close together in time, and hope any biases cancel.
A Monte Carlo analysis of just the current SurveyUSA poll (methods) suggests that, if an election were held now, Gregoire would have a 66.6% chance of winning and Rossi would have a 33.4% chance of winning. Here is the distribution of vote outcomes based on the polling information:
The more interesting analysis, however, includes all four of the polls taken in the last three weeks. This seems reasonable if we are allowed to assume that voter opinion has remained relatively static over these three weeks (i.e. no breaking scandals, “Macaca” moments, natural disasters, etc.)
The four pooled polls mentioned above give Gregoire 49.3% of the “votes” and Rossi 44.5% of the “votes”, with 6.2% undecided. There were 2,272 people surveyed who selected either Rossi or Gregoire. The Monte Carlo results suggests that Gregoire would win an election held now with a 95.9% probability and Rossi would win with a 4.1% probability. Here is the distribution of vote outcomes for the combined analysis:
Here are a couple of observations that back up these results. The last time Rossi led in a poll was in February. There have been 16 polls taken since then. One of those polls was a tie and Gregoire led in the other 15. Before that, one has to go back another seven polls, back to November 2006, before finding this poll in which Rossi led.
The take-home message is that (1) Gregoire has repeatedly held the lead in this race. It is highly unlikely that this has happened by chance (i.e. the lead is almost certainly real). (2) There has been very little movement in the polling numbers for Rossi or Gregroire over the last 1.5 years. (3) If the non-movement continues, Gregoire will almost certainly win a second term.
And Darcy Burner still hugs rabbits!
These polls also function as IQ tests. Rossi promises to build an 8-lane 520 bridge for $1 billion less than what a 6-lane bridge costs. Anyone who believes that crap has the IQ of an eggplant.
The long-range forecast says there’s a 95% chance that November 4 will rain on Rossi’s parade.
The ACLU has filed a judicial ethics complaint against Alabama judge Ashley McKathan for ordering 100 people in his courtroom to join hands and pray. Judge McKathan was previously involved in controversy when he wore a judicial robe in court with the Ten Commandments embroidered on it.
Thank the Great Mother Rabbit Spirit that the ACLU is protecting our right to pray, or not pray, when and where we choose — instead of when, where, and how the government orders us to.
Roger
You and I will vote for CG, BUT I really think she is going to lose. She is running a head to head mud slinging campaign with DR. This might not matter if she were popular but she ain’t. I do not know who the flacid forebrains running her campaign are, but they do not have lot of time to move on.
Worse, CG is a lousy debater, if Rossi is smart he will tape the debates and rerun them over and over again.
@5:
Glad one of you two is realistic. Rodent is and has always been irrelevant, out of date, out of touch with the real world and delusional. “One-foot-in -the-grave” shut-ins do not matter when they spew. OK Rodent, now for your next 50 posts. Ready, set, go! BTW, attending Drinking Liberally next week?
Jeezus, all these analyses are making my head spin! Good thing the governor here in Nevada isn’t up for reelection – he’s such a dimbulb he makes Rossi look like a plausible candidate by comparison. William J. LePetomane was a better governor than Jim Gibbons. Too bad that the woman he beat for the governorship two years ago has all the charm of a turnip.
Not just more Democrats, better Democrats!
Rossi won’t have a Macaca moment because he keeps cameras away from his “public” speeches. That way only his fellow racists can know when he calls minorities names.
Gregoire reminds me of the mouthy Frenchman who was sooooo confident they would beat the American Men in the swimming relay……..
huge lead, overconfident and then tightens up as the great American out-touches her at the wall!
Soaring Property Taxes in King Kounty WILL hurt Dems like Gregoire:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....or15m.html
People vote with their pocketbook.
Throw the bums out!!
C’mon Chris lets rub sand in that BIAW shill’s face.
Notice how Mr. “prefers the GOP Party” inserts the word “change” about two or three times in every ad he runs? Gee, I wonder where he got that idea? The real truth is that this punk is nothing but a George Bush wannabe, heck he’s even got a dog named Dubya.
Gee, only 2% undecided in this recent poll? That seems significant. I’ve always thought that this election didn’t have a lot of sway in it, with voters unlikely to change their minds, once they have made their initial decision.
The 50% – 48% polling outcome might be accurate, given that DINO/BIAW has thrown an awful lot of money into adds with close-ups of Rossi’s best “smiling real-estate salesman’s face”, while he commensurates about high gas prices and traffic congestion. Of course, the ads are nonesense – what does he plan to do, repeal the 5 cent gas tax and build a lot of roads at the same time? It appeals to the most un-informed among us, but it is bound to have some affect among those who want someone to promise them a miracle.
But think about it – Dino’s given it his best shot, and according to this most recent poll, Gregoire only needs to retain the votes she has, plus a handfull more, to win the election. Dino, on the other hand, has to convince the remaining 2% undecided to ALL vote for him, and also count on a few defections from the ranks of those who have already indicated they would vote for Gregoire.
To repeat myself, I think the biggest “unkown” will be the legions of young Obama supporters who don’t have land lines and aren’t being polled. If they do turn out and vote in the numbers anything like they did in the primaries, and if the Democratic party does a decent job of organizing them and educating them about the local tickets, it could be a surprisingly decisive victory for Gregoire and Burner.
Some ideas on how to spend Gregoire’s campaign war chest:
(a) An add which shows Rossi commensurating about high gas prices and traffic congestion, then points out that Rossi is trying to pull the same old. tired political trick of promising to lower taxes and increase services, and Washington taxpayers are too smart to fall for that obvious trick.
(b) An add which ridicules Rossi’s transportation plan, and shows him to be the lightweight that he is. (Sure, it’s made the papers, but with newspaper readership declining, this needs to be rubbed in his face with TV ads).
(c) More adds which show Gregoire’s leadership in the tobacco settlement, in getting the doctors and lawyers to agree to forego another bruising “tort reform” campaign, emphasizing (again) the state’s high ranking on Forbe’s list of places to do business, etc.
We need to have Rossi scrambling to defend himself every day, rather than waiting to respond to his attack.
Another point about the young voters, most of which will vote for Obama, and are very likely votes for other Democratic candidates as well:
Organizing on college campuses is convenient and rather easy. It’s convenient because the young people are together in one place, there are people willing to take active leadership roles, etc. It is a golden opportunity to get the next generation involved, to teach them political skills, to get some free labor (door belling, etc.), and hopefully to educate them about the local tickets. A little foresight helps – getting college students to register to vote is good, but if they are from swing districts (like the 8th) they should consider NOT changing their residency to their college address.
But because college organizing is relatively easy, the parties tend to overlook all the young voters who aren’t attending the major colleges. You have hundreds of thousands of community college students, as well many more who are just trying to get a job and start a career. Reaching them can be a challenge, but it might well be worth the effort.
rhp6033
As long as BITH candidates allow it, this match will be about mud wrestling. The idea that a Gregoire response will look like a counter attack will not help her. Worse, whenh she has to debate him, we can only hope that she has had some great prep. Last time she effec up terribly! (I voted FOR Rossi based on those debates!).
Let me suggest a very different strategy:
1. “Theme” her campaign. Lets say, she calls it Opportunity WA. She can then use ads that stress WA’s virtues.
2. For each of thse virtues … education, transportation (location), natural respurces, core corporate oindustries … she then makes an ad, stressing what needs to be done to move forward.
Because ANY move forward would mean violation of Reprican principles, Rossi would be in a hard place. Here is one example:
Higher Ed. Propose to expand our college system (not the two research schools) AND do so in a way that reflects the dispersion of state growth! Inlcude a poilytechnical School for Everett and then explain how suchg a school would work to keep Boeing and the USN here for the long run.
A proposal like this lines up industry, labor, local intersts behind her. What would Rossi counter with? Unless he got there first!
Mr. Cynical @ 9
“huge lead, overconfident and then tightens up as the great American out-touches her at the wall!”
Odd…because it was Rossi who held a solid lead in the early polls.
That was the lead he got out of the $2M Republican propaganda effort commonly known as the “failed election contest”.
11. Upton spews:
“The real truth is that this punk is nothing but a George Bush wannabe, heck he’s even got a dog named Dubya.”
Never been a Bush Fan. Bush is not a Conservative. And heck, I don’t even have a dog!
14. rhp6033 spews:
“Another point about the young voters, most of which will vote for Obama, and are very likely votes for other Democratic candidates as well”
Herein lies a huge problem for Gregoire. Young voters are more likely to “throw the bums out”. After 28 years of Dem rule in the Washington Governor’s Mansion, Gregoire is a BUM!
rhp–The “CHANGE” mantra may work for O-blah-blah…but it may also work for Rossi.
You can rant all you want about how Gregoire is somehow “different” and doesn’t deserve to get thrown overboard…but she has really stepped into by supporting O-blah-blah and spewing about the need for “CHANGE”….just not her.
Interesting, huh?
Gregoire is running against Rossi.
O-blah-blah is running against a real Maverick in McCain.
PS–Bush isn’t running…THANK GOD!
Cynical @ 18: Well, Rossi’s been pretty obviously trying to co-opt the Obama momentum by pretending, at least to the general public, that he’s a “change” Democrat. He’s even trying to run complaining about high fuel prices and inflation – as if the governor can do much about that at all!
Of course, it’s all window dressing – all Rossi’s transportation proposals are a throw-back to the 1950’s (more and bigger highways), which is hardly change. I guess it makes sense, if Lou Guzzo is his “idea man” (Guzzo’s best years were probably in the 1950’s). It’s also why Rossi’s campaign is so adamant that his appearancs not be videotaped – they don’t want the “real Rossi” to be available for public viewing and comparison.
To steal a line from McCain – “That’s not change we can believe in”.
As for McCain being a “maverick” – he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar with the Keating 5, and then tried to save his tail by presenting himself in favor of “campaign reform”, thereby really ticking off the rest of the Republican Party. But to get the nomination, he had to promise to do away with his “maverick” ways.
Want to see an example in today’s news? He hints that there is a remote possiblity that his VP pick might not be solidly anti-abortion, and the evangelical wing of the party threatens to boycott the election!
What on earth does it mean to be a ‘maverick’ Republican these days?
Just how would a McCain administration be any different than a Bush third term?
If you actually look at the numbers, it’s quite damning for Gregoire.
1) The Democrats are over sampled by 12% to Republicans and by 17% to Independents
2) The ProChoice to ProLife sample ratio is almost 2 to 1
3) The sample who live in metro seattle is 6% higher for Gregoire supporters than it was for the Rossi supporters AND there was a higher proportion of people sampled in Western Washington among Gregoire supporters.
This is bad news for Gregoire because the poll sampling favors her. Especially considering that this is AFTER the first few rounds of attack ads on Rossi AND considering how supposedly bad the Republican brand is according to all the monkeys on this blog.
But hey, if you want to run some supposedly meaningful gambling scenario so that it looks like Gregoire is going to win go for it. The Amen commenters aren’t going to actually look any deeper than the surface. RHP666 proves that every day.
Now go ahead BBGOP, utter some useless non sequitur ad hominem to distract from the fact that you can’t actually refute anything I’ve said in order to fulfill your cliched existence…
I’m not sure you’re doing the Monte Carlo analysis correctly Darryl. If 50% of survey respondents indicate they’re voting for Gregoire, that just means 50% of survey respondents are voting for Gregoire. It does not mean each voter has a 50% “chance” of voting for Gregoire. Voters’ choices are determined by their own selves, they are not probabilistic. Flipping a coin is probabilistic, since nobody controls if it flips “heads” or “tails.” Voting is not a random event.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.....rnal_links
10. I thought Gregoire and her gang limited all those property tax hikes to 1%. She ran quite a campaign blitz with her cronies all standing outside someone’s house flashing a 1% sign whaile they were spewing that she had limited these hikes to 1%
…Got your property tax statements yet and done the fuzzy wuzzy Gregoire math yet?
I thought not!
Christine Gregoire represents the corrupt King County Democrats, while Dino Rossi represents the corrupt Republicans, and we all know who the Demopublicans serve – Bill Gates and his corporate cronies.
Let’s face it; the gubernatorial campaign is a lost cause (again). Don’t let it distract you from other important races…like Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI).
The media drone on and on about Terry Bergeson and Randy Dorn, who have all the corrupt endorsements and money. In fact, Bergeson and Dorn have been working together for years, and both have many scandals around their necks.
One candidate for SPI is raising Hell. He has more information on his campaign website (and discusses more issues) than any other candidate in this race. Indeed, he could probably blow any of the gubernatorial candidates out of the water.
We’ve stood by and watched George W. Bush and the Vichy Democrats flush the economy down the toilet. Can we at least rally behind our schools, behind the children who will inherit our mess?
Check out David Blomstrom‘s campaign website at http://www.seattle-mafia.org. Don’t let corrupt unions determine the outcome of this race!