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Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Pataki Circling the Drain

The third poll in a week - this one courtesy of the New York Times - demonstrates just how bad life is for George Pataki (registered voters, no trendlines):

Spitzer: 49
Pataki: 34
Undecided: 14
(MoE: ±3%)

The rest of Pataki's numbers are even more atrocious. Job approval: 43-41 (lowest since his first year in office). Favorables: 33-38 (again, lowest since 1995). Spitzer's numbers, meanwhile, are awesome: 59-13 job approval and 39-7 favorable.

Oh, and one point I'll add (because Steve Soto taught us all to ask this question): The poll undersamples Democrats (and Republicans, but by a smaller margin). The spread in New York state is (according to the most recent enrollment figures) 47% Dem, 27% GOP and 20% independent. (Another 3% are potentially confused members of the Independence Party who may think they are registered "independents," while the final 3% belong to an assortment of other small parties.) The NYT poll has a sample of 43D-25R-22I.

Granted, according to CNN's exit polls taken during last year's election, Republican-identifiers apparently voted in greater strength than the number of GOP registrants would predict. But those figures are only useful for determining how to weight for likely voters. Since the NYT is only talking to registered voters at this very early date, it should re-weight accordingly. The Times weights for other factors but not, evidently, party ID.

The bottom line: Among registered voters, I think the numbers are actually a bit worse for Pataki than even this abysmal showing indicates. Time to throw in the towel, George.

You can get the full results here (PDF).

Posted at 01:17 AM in 2006 Elections - State, New York | Technorati

Comments

Looks like the Democrats are going to win another governorship!

Posted by: Abigail the Great at February 19, 2005 03:29 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment