Tag: Chris Gregoire

SurveyUSA (10/26-27, likely voters, 10/12-13 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 50 (48)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 48 (47)

(MoE: ±4%)

Yesterday I commented, in relation to the UW poll that gave Chris Gregoire a 6-point edge, that national pollsters insist on seeing this as a 1-2 point game, but local pollsters see a wider spread. Well, like clockwork, SurveyUSA rolled in today with a 50-48 spread (in fact, the third time they’ve come up with a 50-48 tally).

This poll is interesting for one reason, though: SurveyUSA this time asked the ‘already voted’ question. 54% of the respondents have already voted, and of them, they’re going for Gregoire at a 53-46 ratio (with 1% undecided!). The remaining likely voters are breaking for Rossi 50-47, but as you can see from the topline, there just aren’t enough of them to win it for him. One other crosstab that I found nice to see: self-described moderates go for Gregoire 57-42, meaning they aren’t buying Rossi’s innocuous sales patter. (Obama is destroying McCan’t upticket, 56-39.)

Univ. of Washington (10/18-26, likely voters, 10/22-28/2007 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 51 (47)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 45 (42)

(MoE: ±4%)

Here’s another Washington governor’s race poll, this time from the University of Washington, from whom we haven’t heard anything in a year. (Obama’s up in the same sample, 55-34.) Note how consistent the trendlines are, though; more fuel for my argument that people made their minds up about this race 4 years ago. So, to recap, we have this conundrum: the national pollsters (SurveyUSA and Rasmussen) keep seeing this as a 1-2 point race, while the locals (Elway and UW) keep giving Gregoire a comfortable margin.

UPDATE: Promising tidbit: Dino Rossi must undergo deposition before Election Day, regarding the lawsuit attacking the coordinated spending between the state party and the Building Industry Association of Washington.

Rasmussen (10/22, likely voters, 10/2 in parens):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 50 (48)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 48 (48)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Ordinarily, there would be no reason to pay much attention to a 2-point shift in a close race, other than as statistical noise. This race, though, has been a game of inches throughout, and has seen very little fluctuation, as most voters seem to have just locked in their preferences following the super-close 2004 election.

This may represent Gregoire being able to finally grab hold of Obama’s coattails for a last-minute boost, small as it may be. (The most recent Elway Poll may confirm this; while the overall spread there seems way too optimistic, it certainly measured movement in her direction.) It may be that Gregoire (or NARAL, on her behalf) finally found an advertising groove that works, hitting Rossi on being pro-life (a fact previously unknown to a surprisingly large number of moderate suburban women voters). Or, as always, it may just be float within the MoE.

Elway (10/16-19, registered voters, 9/8-10):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 51 (48)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 39 (44)

(MoE: ±5%)

This comes as a bit of a surprise: after month upon month of ties and minuscule Gregoire leads in Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polling (with a brief boomlet for Rossi during the peak of Palinmania), local pollster Elway shows up with a poll with Gregoire blowing off the doors with a 12-point lead.

Interestingly, Gregoire seems to be picking up a bit of Republican support. Gregoire is supported by 85% of Democrats (which is consistent with other polls I’ve seen, and pointed to her main problem: holding down the number of Obama/Rossi ticket-splitters), but Rossi may have lost a bit of his headlock on the state’s Republicans, as this poll reports his support among GOP Partiers as only 87%.

I can’t tell from the writeup whether this poll identified Rossi as “Republican” or “prefers GOP Party,” as he appears on the ballot (last time around, Elway tested it both ways and found that Rossi performed significantly better when identified as “GOP” rather than “Republican”); if Elway used only “Republican” this time, that may be what’s making the difference here. Although Elway has an excellent reputation in Washington political circles, their numbers have tended to be quite different from the robo-pollers; we’ll have to wait till Election Day to see who has the better model.

SurveyUSA (9/21-22, likely voters, 9/21-22 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 48 (50)

Dino Rossi (R): 47 (48)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Nothing ever seems to budge the numbers in this race: the financial crisis, the implosion of Team McCain (the same sample finds Obama is up 56-40 in Washington, so Obama’s adding to his lead without extending coattails), allegations of illegal campaign coordination between Rossi and the builders’ lobby, nothing. Gregoire maintains her tiny edge from the previous SUSA poll, as the numbers bounce around within the margin of error.

Part of this, as both Matt Stoller and I discussed in our ruminations on what’s the matter with WA-08, is that Washington seems less affected by the economic downturn than most other places, leaving people less eager to dissociate with the Republicans as has happened at a national level. But also, as I’ve said repeatedly, people’s minds were already made up about this year’s race four years ago during the protracted recount, and the long-term hardened attitudes explain why undecideds are always so low in this race.

UPDATE: The GOP just money-bombed this race; the numbers are huge. The BIAW (Building Industry Association of Washington) just pumped in $4 million, and the Republican Governor’s Association put in another $3.5 million. That brings Rossi’s cash haul to date, including all independent expenditures, up to $22 million (compare with Gregoire’s $16 million). The ads are already at a complete saturation point, so I don’t know how much more effective that will be in swaying that last 2-3% of undecideds, but damned if they aren’t going to go all in, trying to do it.

Rasmussen (10/2, likely voters, 9/10 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 48 (46)

Dino Rossi (GOP Party): 48 (52)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Last month’s Rasmussen poll showing Republican challenger Dino Rossi suddenly shooting up to a 6-point lead (from the within-a-point-or-two stasis that had reigned almost all year) probably resulted in a lot of pants-soiling among Washington Dems. Well, I have no idea if that poll was a fleeting snapshot of Palinmania at its most fervent, or just one of Rasmussen’s occasional weird gyrations, but everything seems to have returned back to normal in the Washington gubernatorial race. (FWIW, the last Rasmussen presidential poll had Obama up by only 2, while today’s sample has him up 53-43.)

This poll was taken shortly after Builder-gate broke into the public consciousness, so it appears that Builder-gate has yet had little if any impact on the race, despite hopes that it might give Rossi a black eye… not that I would expect it to, as it turns on arcane aspects of state campaign finance law rather than anything sexy (or easily comprehensible). And while it does serve to make Rossi look a little sleazier, there are (as the latest poll shows) very few undecideds left to be swayed by a little more sleaze.

However, as of a few hours ago, Washington’s Republican Attorney General, Rob McKenna, just filed suit against Washington’s Republican Party for its involvement in the matter. So this will linger around on local newspapers’ front pages for a little while longer…

Here’s a relatively short introduction to Builder-Gate, courtesy of Goldy at Horse’s Ass, who, as he often does, beat the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer in breaking the story:

Rossi was an active participant in the [Building Industry Association of Washington]’s illegal fundraising scheme… a scheme for which the [Public Disclosure Commission] found the BIAW guilty of multiple “egregious” violations of Washington’s campaign finance and disclosure laws, and which is now being prosecuted by the Attorney General’s office.

But it is important to note that even if the BIAW had scrupulously conducted its campaign within the letter of the law (and it didn’t), Rossi would still be guilty of a major violation of our campaign statutes, for it is absolutely positively 100% illegal (not to mention grossly unethical) for a candidate to coordinate activities with an independent expenditure campaign.

SurveyUSA (9/21-22, likely voters, 9/5-7 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 50 (47)

Dino Rossi (R): 48 (48)

(MoE: ±3.8%)

I’ll file Washington’s governor’s race in the “good news” column: after a period in the post-GOP convention afterglow when Dino Rossi nosed ahead of Chris Gregoire (or shot ahead by 6, in the case of that sketchy Rasmussen poll), we may be returning the old stasis, with a tiny edge for Gregoire, who remains deeply dependent on Obama coattails to get her over the finish line. In the same sample, Obama leads 54-43, again, much more plausible than his +2 in the last Rasmussen. (H/t mikeel.)

UPDATE: Here’s an amusing little aside. The Washington Democratic Party is suing Secretary of State Sam Reed (a Republican, but a highly ethical one) to force him to change Rossi’s self-selected ballot line (from “GOP Party” to “Republican”). I don’t think the Dems have a legal leg to stand on, but it makes sense for them to try, in wake of last week’s Elway poll giving Gregoire a 4-point lead when Rossi is identified as “prefers GOP Party” and a 10-point lead when he’s identified as “Republican.”

PPP (9/17-19, likely voters, 9/9 in parentheses):

Bev Perdue (D): 44 (41)

Pat McCrory (R): 43 (40)

Michael Munger (L): 6 (6)

(MoE: ±3.0%)

Civitas (R) (9/17-20, registered voters, 9/6-10 in parentheses):

Bev Perdue (D): 41 (40)

Pat McCrory (R): 43 (39)

Michael Munger: 3 (2)

(MoE: ±4.0%)

I’ll file North Carolina under “mixed bag,” as PPP gives Perdue another small edge (this is the same sample that showed Obama and McCain tied at 46 and Hagan up by 5). Civitas gives McCrory a two-point edge, up from a one-point deficit before (this sample showed Obama/McCain tied at 45 and Dole up by 2). This one clearly will go down to the wire.

Research 2000 for St. Louis Post-Dispatch (9/15-18, likely voters, 7/7-10 in parentheses):

Jay Nixon (D): 50 (52)

Kenny Hulshof (R): 43 (35)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

I’ll file this under “bad news,” but this is the kind of bad news that I’ll gladly take. Jay Nixon still leads Kenny Hulshof by a comfortable margin in the race for the open governor’s seat in Missouri, except Research 2000 (working for the St. Louis newspaper rather than Daily Kos on this one) shows that Hulshof has closed within high single digits instead of the showy double-digit margins Nixon has mostly been posting. Rasmussen gave Nixon a 15-point spread last week, so there’s not much cause for alarm, though. (McCain leads in this sample, 49-45.)

Strategic Vision (R) (9/14-16, likely voters, 7/25-27 in parens):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 46 (47)

Dino Rossi (R): 48 (45)

(MoE: ±3%)

Another poll of the Washington gubernatorial race, although from rather suspicious Republican polling firm Strategic Vision, confirms the movement in the last month of this race from lean Dem status to a tied, if ever-so-slightly-leaning-GOP, game. Gregoire, after ceding the airwaves for a while, appears to be renewing her ad efforts this week, but news of a $3.2 billion state budget deficit for the next biennium isn’t likely to play out in her favor.

Obama leads McCain 47-42 in Washington in the same poll, consistent with most other polling as well.  

Swing State Project is moving its rating of the Washington governor’s race to “Tossup.”

While we’re reasonably confident in governor Chris Gregoire’s ability to prevail in her rematch with 2004 GOP opponent Dino Rossi, thanks to Obama coattails on top of Washington’s Democratic lean, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the most recent round of polling from both Rasmussen and SurveyUSA has given narrow leads to Rossi. If there’s any question, look at the trendlines.

There are several factors at work here: a higher energy level on the part of Rossi’s supporters (who have spent the last four years feeling that they wuz robbed), and Rossi’s skill as a retail politician vs. Gregoire’s reluctance to toot her own horn. Most significant is a sustained Rossi ad blitz, funded by big bucks from the Republican Governor’s Association (who don’t have too many other wise places to spend their money) and even more from the Evergreen State’s principal behind-the-scenes right-wing string-pullers, the Building Industry Association of Washington. Rossi will still be running into a stiff Democratic headwind in November, but a Rossi win is no longer out of the question.

SurveyUSA (9/5-7, likely voters, 7/18-20 in parens):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 47 (50)

Dino Rossi (R): 48 (48)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

In Washington, SurveyUSA comes out with the first poll since March giving GOP challenger Dino Rossi a lead. Two thoughts: this poll was taken over the weekend, at the very peak of the afterglow from the Republican convention, and Rossi has also been hitting the airwaves hard with ads (although that looks to continue for the foreseeable future… the Republican Governor’s Association, not having many other places to spend its money, gave Rossi $1 million on Aug. 21).

Although the crosstabs look quite normal, there’s also something kind of fishy about how some of the numbers break down. In May, Gregoire led by 24 points among women, and trailed by 20 points among men. Today, Gregoire and Rossi are tied among women, and Rossi leads by 2 among men. The Palin pick couldn’t have had that much of an effect, could it? (Especially since polls have generally indicated that pick was more popular with men than women.) In addition, the same sample gave Obama a lead of only 49-45, which is the smallest lead he’s had in Washington since February.

The Pollster.com graph for the race can be seen here.