NC-Sen: Burr Leads by 24 Points?

29 thoughts on “NC-Sen: Burr Leads by 24 Points?”

1. They keep showing them overwhelming republican contrary to all past data/other polls/logic.  

2. Burr has run some good ads reintroducing himself to North Carolina.

3. SUSA is living in a fantasy world with a fantasy electorate.

   The campaign asked our pollster, Lake Research, to do an analysis of this poll and here is what they found:

   The most recent SurveyUSA poll regarding the North Carolina Senate race seems to be deeply flawed.  There a number of methodological questions as well as internal contradictions that cause us to doubt its accuracy.  Those issues are outlined below.

   • SurveyUSA started calling on a Friday evening.  First, as a practice, we almost never call on a Friday evening and we certainly never begin a survey on that night.  Friday evening is a notoriously difficult night to try and reach voters.  That complication is further exacerbated by beginning the survey on a Friday.  
   • SurveyUSA used an RDD (random digit dialed) sample.  Typically, during off-year election campaigns like this one, campaign-polling teams use a voter-file sample in order to talk to voters who have shown a past habit of voting in these kinds of elections.  Past behavior is the biggest indicator of future behavior.  In this case SurveyUSA has no way of telling if the people they spoke to have participated in similar elections and that could cause them to interview people who will not vote this year.
   • SurveyUSA’s reported data among likely voters shows they reached more men (53% of the sample) than women (only 47%).  Typically, women almost always outnumber men in the likely voter universe and on Election Day, both nationally and in North Carolina.  The data also has Burr ahead among men by a larger share than he leads women which artificially and inaccurately inflates his support.
   • SurveyUSA’s reported likely voter universe is comprised of almost equal parts Democrats (40%) and Republicans (39%).  That too is unusual.  In fact, our own internal baseline had the Democratic party identification advantage at 5-points and at the time that was the smallest advantage in any publicly released data.  Democrats have a partisan-identification advantage in this state and this survey does not reflect that reality.  Further, we have no way of telling if the data accurately reflects the Democratic registration advantage in the state since it is based on an RDD sample.
   • SurveyUSA’s reported likely voter universe is younger than a typical off-year electorate.  More than half of their respondents are under age 50 and less than half are over age 50.  Generally, the electorate tends to be older than that in non-presidential years.  Burr has a larger advantage among younger voters than older voters in this data and thus his support is again artificially inflated.
   • The SurveyUSA poll shows Burr leading among both women and men.  This does not make sense.  Nationally, polling shows women significantly more Democratic than men.  The same is historically true in North Carolina.  In the SurveyUSA poll Burr has a 9-point advantage among women.  In our baseline poll, Marshall was leading Burr by ten points among women.  
   • Finally, the SurveyUSA poll only asks favorable ratings and does not ask about Senator Burr’s job performance ratings. Every public poll released this year with that data shows voters giving Burr decidedly negative job performance ratings.  In fact, it is the single strongest predictor of the vote.  In our baseline survey, only 25% of voters felt Burr had done an excellent or good job compared to 58% who believed he had done a just fair or poor job.  The survey never gives proper framing for the election or the eventual ballot ask by omitting job performance as a key question.  That also artificially inflates Burr’s support.

   That took a long time to code, so you know I mean it. All of that combined leads to a very bad poll, don’t buy it — the race in North Carolina between Elaine Marshall and Richard Burr is tight and winnable race.

4. I suspect Burr is up by double digits, but 24 seems a stretch.  

5. He’s probably up about 10 points, but there’s no way he’s going to blow the doors off this one, even in this year.

   In recent history, Senate elections in North Carolina have been relatively close (within 10 points always, but often much closer).Even though Jesse Helms managed to get elected five times, he never beat his opponent by double digits and he couldn’t get past 52% of the vote in his last two campaigns.  

   We have a pretty steady history of turning out senators occupying the particular seat. Not that such a “curse” means anything, but I have a hard time believing Richard Burr is such a beloved figure in this state that he’s going to close in on 60% of the vote. He’ll probably win, but I’ll be damned surprised if Elaine Marshall doesn’t exceed 45%.
   

6. has jumped the shark totally.  They have been so far off base in so many places it’s ridiculous.  They’ve been way off in Washington, off in California, off in Minnesota.  Just today they’ve released two ridiculous polls in North Carolina and Georgia that contradict virtually all data that we’ve seen from the polling community.  Their problem is their continued inability to show democratic candidates leading big among voters in the 18-34 age bracket, and the fact that their partisan weights are downright apocalyptic for the democratic side, weights that would only happen if a portion of the democratic base drove into a giant black hole on election day.  

   Does anybody remember the SUSA poll from around this time of year two years ago that had McCain leading Obama by 20 points?  This poll reeks just like that one did.  

   From now on, I’m going to start treating SUSA polls just like We Ask America, or other right-leaning organizations.  This is ridiculous anymore.

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