SurveyUSA (10/13-14, likely voters, 9/17-18 in parens):
Kay Barnes (D): 40 (42)
Sam Graves (R-inc): 51 (51)
Dave Browning (L): 4 (4)
(MoE: ±4.1%)
This race was one of the earliest pickup opportunities touted by the DCCC in 2007, and for a while it looked like former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes would make this one a real monster of a race. While she’s certainly been spending heavily in recent weeks (and so has the DCCC), and I still wouldn’t count her out yet, it’s disappointing that we haven’t seen any promising poll numbers from this race in quite some time.
This is one of those seats I thought for sure we’d put into play by Nov. Does anyone have any insight as to why Barnes can’t get above the low-40 ceiling? As you said James, she sure has spent enough money.
But it looks like Sam Graves is not a J.D. Hayworth.
That, or those ads of “wild San Francisco parties” actually worked. I don’t think it’s possible to believe that though.
…do not look at Survey USA’s congressional polls as legitimate this cycle. I know Nate Silver rates them highly on FiveThirtyEight and I know they had a good cycle in ’06, but their numbers are whack for downticket races.
I imagine their problem is younger voters. I know this cycle they’ve had Darcy Burner and Al Franken getting killed among younger voters, which is ludicrous (and I’m not predicting that either will necessarily clean up the younger vote like Obama, but they won’t lose it big.) My guess is that since they do automated polls, they’re not really getting the younger people they think they’re getting, who are using only cellphones, and are instead polling their parents.
I’ve got some more theories, and I could be completely wrong. In the end, we don’t know. But just take them with a grain of salt. I know we in the netroots have gone from hating automated polls to loving them in just two years, but it is a method truly wrought with hazards if you aren’t careful and it seems to me SUSA isn’t being careful in their downticket polls (I think they are spending more on the presidential ones.)
Does anyone have any evidence to contradict me? I’m am traditionally a pessimist, but I refuse to get brought down by SUSA. Their downticket polls in ’08 will be the first casualty of the cellphone generation in my humble opinion.