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Monday, October 16, 2006

AZ-05, CA-50, MN-02, NM-01: SUSA Shows Huge Movement for Democratic Challengers

Posted by James L.

Survey USA has four hot new polls out today, each showing a signficant bump for Democratic challengers:

AZ-05: Mitchell (D) 45, Hayworth (R) 48
CA-50: Busby (D) 46, Bilbray (R) 49
MN-02: Rowley (DFL) 42, Kline (R) 50
NM-01: Madrid (D) 53, Wilson (R) 45

I'd put up trendlines, etc, but I'm pressed for time. Here's the money quote, though:

In all four of these districts, we observe significant movement away from the Republican incumbent and towards the Democratic challenger, with the Republican's lead decreasing by between 9 and 13 points. Furthermore, all four districts show a shift in the party distribution of likely voters, with the Republican-Democrat difference changing towards Democrats by between 4 and 11 points. Two possible explanations for this shift are:

1) Republicans are becoming less likely to vote, and Democrats are becoming more likely to vote;
2) Some "weak Republicans" are now identifying themselves as Independent, while some left-leaning Independents are now identifying themselves as Democrats.
It is unclear at this time which of these explanations is more significant, or how persistent the shift will be. But the consistency of the pattern suggests that the movement in these 4 contests may be driven by a nationwide trend affecting all House races, rather than by factors specific to the individual districts.

How crazy would it be if an underfunded, unnoticed Busby managed to knock out Bilbray the second time around? While I still think it's quite unlikely, with numbers like these, it all depends on base motivation. You go, girl!

Posted at 09:05 PM in 2006 Elections - House, Arizona, California, Minnesota, New Mexico | Technorati

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Comments

Ditto on Busby, James. I'm still receiving e-mails updates from that campaign and have thought that maybe.... Anyway, here's an interesting clip from the most recent e-mail, as it may portend a rethug campaign strategy to be used elsewhere too:
"Bilbray's campaign is up to more dirty Tricks. They have been "auto dialing" people in the 50th District with a message that sounds like it's a Busby Campaign message. Some of these calls are dialed late at night, intentionally waking people up with this message.
People are furious and so am I! These calls are NOT from our campaign.

Our campaign will be filing a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) immediately because this is illegal and unethical."(Signed by Francine Busby)

Anyway, great news regarding those polls, plus here is one for a race that has been discussed on here in the recent past: Kansas AG, and it is also good news for the Democratic candidate versus the rightwing total nutjob republicant (prior poll was 9/14):
Kansas Attorney General (Survey Usa) MOE 4.3% 10/13-16
Morrison-D 56 (51)
Kline-R 43 (48)
Undecided 2 (2)
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportPopup.aspx?g=4ee459be-49ec-47ca-ab0f-7c565cec9dae&q=31233

Nice 8 point shift in one month especially given that Sebelius's lead dropped from 20 points to 13

Posted by: Predictor at October 16, 2006 10:16 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

CA-50:
According to that Survey/Usa Poll, Bilbray-R is getting:
Black- 24%, Hispanic - 61%, Asian - 57%.
These figures are surprising. WUWT?

Posted by: Predictor at October 16, 2006 10:54 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

SurveyUSA asks the respondent to punch in their answers using their phone key pad.

On many of their surveys, the breakdowns by ethnicity do not appear to be accurate. That is because respondents are not always honest about their responses (particularly to the ethnicity question) and SurveyUSA has no real way to control for this. And, since the sample sizes in these crosstab categories are often small, the problem is magnified.

Respondents tend to be more straightforward with a live telephone interviewer.

Despite this problem, SurveyUSA's pre-election polls (including the one done right before the CA-50 special election) have been quite accurate.

Posted by: DCal at October 16, 2006 11:50 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Since I live in San Diego and I've worked in the past in much of the 50th, I can believe those ethnic breakdowns. Why? First of all, because Camp Pendleton (Marine Corps base) is just outside of the district, there are many conservative military or military-related voters. Regardless of our "Fighting Dems", in this region military tends to connote conservative and Republican. And the military is a major employer of these ethnicities in this area. The number for Asians is so very high because the district includes an area that is heavily Filipino, an ethnic group which locally has tended to vote Republican and conservative. My suspicion is that neither the Busby campaign nor the local Dems have targeted that group or else has done it very ineffectively.

Posted by: phonatic at October 17, 2006 02:06 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Hope for a late-bloomer ?

Wouldn't it be great to see all that energy (and money!) we invested in CA-50 blossom into a Round Two win??

I just got a mailing from the Busby campaign in yesterday's mail, in fact. She hasn't packed it in and neither should we.

Support our gal at:

http://www.actblue.com/page/2006fund?refcode=busbydd

Posted by: Christopher Walker at October 17, 2006 10:48 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Thanks "DCal" forthe explain on Survey/Usa's determination of polling ethnicity.
And to "phoniac", interesting that in your area the "Filipino" vote is repub as in the SF Bay Area, the "Filipino" vote is heavily Dem (Daly City). The only asian grouping that I thought was more repub than Democratic being the Vietnamese ethnic group.

Posted by: Predictor at October 17, 2006 12:17 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

Madrid is a great candidate. It's good to see those numbers. I actually found this website http://www.21stcenturydems.org/candidates/endorsement which gives the bios/ views of 5 candidates and you get to vote on your favorite. Whoever wins the competition gets an endorsement from 21st Century Democrats, this PAC that only endorses candidates who deserve to be recognized for what they can do for our country. Check it out...vote for whoever you like. I'm a fan of Madrid but you decide....

Posted by: ChristinaWA at October 18, 2006 12:31 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment