Strategies 360 has released a new poll for the new Washington first congressional district. The poll of 500 likely voters (4.4 MOE) was conducted from 15 to 17 July.
Here are the results (with “leaners”):
- Koster (R) 36%
- Burner (D) 12%
- DelBene (D) 11%
- Hobbs (D) 7%
- Ruderman (D) 3%
- Rauniyar (D) 1%
- Ishmael (I) 2%
- Other candidate 2%
- DK/NA/Refused 26%
A couple of points. Susan DelBene has certainly moved up since the previous poll, but Darcy Burner still maintains a small edge.
Laura Ruderman, who seems to generate as much “buzz”—even before MotherGate—as Burner and DelBene, is surprisingly weak at 3%.
John Koster has dropped 10% since the previous poll.
With the ballots in the mail this week and voting starting, it sure looks like a November contest between Koster and Burner or Koster and DelBene.
But we should have some more evidence soon…at Drinking Liberally this Tuesday, Goldy mentioned two other (non-candidate) polls that were in the field.
What does this poll say about the general election? The above table shows that Hobbs has a very slight edge over the sum of votes for Democratic voters. Furthermore, Larry Ishmael, the independent, is a past Republican challenger to Rep. Jay Inslee in the first, so we can probably “re-purpose” his 2% to the Koster column. (This isn’t quite true…the the crosstabs show Ishmael has about twice as many progressive supporters as conservative supporters!) These numbers make the new 1st CD a split district with a slight Republican lean.
On the other hand, the self-reported partisan make-up in the sample favors Democrats by 43% to 39%:
- Democrat 27%
- Leans D 16%
- Republican 26%
- Leans R 13%
- Independent 13%
- Other/DK/NA/Refused 5%
The evidence in the crosstabs looks somewhat favorable for a future Democratic Representative in the 1st CD. Of that 26% who didn’t know or didn’t answer who they support, the numbers split almost identically between conservative and progressive (about 6.6% of the total sample for each group). Moderates who didn’t offer a preference make up just under 8% of the total sample, whereas moderates who did have a preference, prefer a Democrat to a Republican 3 to 1.
So…until we have more evidence, this general election looks like a tight race with a slight edge for the Democratic candidate.
