24

by DemFromCT

The Q-Poll has trends and therefore is the one to watch. No poll predicts turnout.

Connecticut likely Democratic primary voters back challenger Ned Lamont 51 - 45 percent lead over incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman in the U.S. Senate race, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 54 - 41 percent Lamont lead among likely Democratic primary voters in an August 3 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.

In this latest survey, 4 percent of likely Democratic primary voters remain undecided, but 90 percent of voters who name a candidate say their mind is made up.

Among Lamont supporters, 54 percent say their vote is mainly against Lieberman. Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq is the main reason they are voting for Lamont, 36 percent of Lamont voters say, while 54 percent say it is one of several reasons.

This remains a solid lead for Lamont, but there are several factors with summer polling:

• Likely voter models are tough to put together

• CT Democratic primaries historically skew liberal


• Intensity is unmeasured, as is GOTV

Observations:

• Lamont's favorable/unfavorable: the unfavorable remain relatively low at 42-18%, so negative ads haven't worked

• Lieberman's have slightly improved at 40-34%, but he's the incumbent and is below 50%

• How much does Lieberman's support of the war in Iraq influence your decision to vote for Lamont - Is it the main reason you are voting for Lamont, is it only one of the reasons, or is it not a reason at all?

LIKELY DEM PRIME VOTERS

NL voters

Main reason             36%
Only one reason   54
Not a reason at all    9
DK/NA                      1

• The above means for 90% of voters the war matters (the national press conclusion), but that other factors matter for more than half the voters (the local conclusion, generally ignored by the national press).

Good analysis here at Mystery Pollster:

Regardless of the reasons for the change, this latest Quinnipiac snapshot of the race is probably the more accurate read, especially given that the results are closer to those obtained by Research 2000 and (if we believe the rumor) the internal Lamont tracking polls as well. 

What is the reality?  The challenge of polling in these situations makes it hard to know for sure, but we know that every recent public poll has shown Lamont running ahead of Lieberman.  The two public polls conducted last week showed Lamont ahead by an average margin of 52% to 44%, and all of the public polls – including the mid-July Rasmussen survey -- all fell within +/- 3-4% of that average.   And of course sampling error does not allow for the differences in the way the polls sample and select likely voters.

So Lamont was probably ahead last week among those who will cast ballots in tomorrow, but conclusions about last minute shifts in momentum are highly speculative.   Political polling in this sort of race is a lot more art than science.   If you live in Connecticut and care about the outcome, ignore the polls and go vote.

And some local thoughts from Colin McEnroe:

1. Turn-out will be higher than I thought on Tuesday. 30 percent is now not a crazy number.

2. The pro-Lamont bloggers have been gently invited by the Lamont campaign to do less hell-raising  and more phone-banking. You won't see them pointing mini-cameras and barking out questions from now until Tuesday. Instead they've reverted into being pretty much regular campaign volunteers. I get the feeling that the "blackface incident" scared the Lamont campaign, and they don't want to spend a lot of energy on charges and counter-charges having to do with something like that.   Jane Hamsher seems to have temporarily disappeared from her own blog, Firedoglake .

3. Today's Q poll showing Lamont with  a six-point lead is closer to a real number. He's ahead but it's close.

4. If Lamont loses, one reason will be not the Country Club issue but its opposite. I think he might have hurt himself a little by getting, to steal an Elvis Mitchellism, more Mumia than thou. Just because the Revs. Sharpton and Jackson are willing to campaign for you infinitely doesn't mean you should accept every offer they make.  Some voters find them off-putting.

5. Nobody knows what to make of all those thousands of new voter registrations and affiliation-switches.

 

Comments

[DemFromCT]

I don't know what to make of McEnroe's #4, btw. I'm ignoring it for now.

[tommy yum]

I know what to make of the "thousands of new voter registrations and affiliation-switches."

Dead people and republicans in democrat's clothing, respectively.

[Kathleen]

I recetnly re-registered as a Dem, after being Independant, so I could vote in the primary against Joe L. Invading Iraq is a big reason, but also he's too damned conservative for me, too suuportive of a brain dead pretender to the throne in the Oval Office, with insane "ideas' if you can stretch the meaning of the word.

I wish I could say I was voting FOR Lamont, but his positions are safe and nonoriginal, like the rest of the Dem positions. The canned "Israel has the right to defend itself" is a real disappointment. If Lamont is slipping in the polls, its because of his position on Israel. The primary movers in CT. who started the challenge of Joe L are people who have been concerned about our unfair treatment of Palestine for many years, so Lamont's recent statement is a damper on enthusiasm. I find people who are conflicted tend to avoid action
so it could effect voter turnout tommorrow.

May the best peacemaker win.
Cliffhanger.

[crab nebula]

I think #4 is the only possible major mistake Lamont has made.

I used to live in NY, and my skin crawls when I see Sharpton on TV. He's toxic. Doesn't matter what his intentions are, that racism exists, etc. Many, many people can't stand him and his presence calls to mind the angry left stereotypes and identity politics that have scared off moderates in the past.

Lamont should have stuck with Maxine Waters. Most in NY don't know her. Jesse Jackson is relatively harmless these days; I think his involvement is a wash. Fortunately this is not an NYC election, where having Sharpton hug you is more likely to have costs.

[DemFromCT]

Sharpton has been in Bridgeport and not at all visible to the rest of CT fwiw.

[DemFromCT]

Kathleen, this is as far from an Israel-Palenstine election as you can get. That's just not the dynamic.

[DemFromCT]

tommy yum, that's nonsense. Rs can't register for the primary, at least not since early May. The numbers represent unaffiliateds.

[Sara]

Dem from CT -- are you hearing anything about this surge of Indies switching to Dem so they can vote on Tuesday? What I mean, is there any sort of organized effort by either camp to phone Indies, screen for their preference, and if it matches the campaign calling's interest, tell them how to go change before the deadline? Are both camps doing it? Just one? -- is it possible that Lowell Weicker has some left over lists of "His" independents and he is doing a seperate effort?

This fascinates me, as in Minnesota we do not have party registeration, and in fact one can register to vote at the polls on election day -- so I have never looked at a tactic like this before. (You can, however, only vote in one primary -- if you cross over the scanner will spit back at you and the scanner tender will make a nasty face and tell you to do over).

Are there actual voter files that list name and phone number that candidates can buy and use for a phone bank? Is there any pattern to this -- parts of the state loaded with Lamont voters having more or less re-registerations? My old Campaign Management instincts return at times like this -- mastery of a new tactic is always interesting.

[DemFromCT]

More Q than A, but CT may not be applicable elsewhere. Remember that some indies are registering as of 12 pm today, and I hear that lines are long to do so.

The town clerks are having trouble keeping up, so i doubt clear lists exist.

[DemFromCT]

More from McEnroe:

Cold Feet.

It's there in the phone banks, and it's there in the Q poll numbers. With the primary staring them in the face, a few swing voters are starting to prefer the guy they know and get jumpy about the unknown quantity.

my guess is that's a factor but not a winning factor for joe. I don't know if the swing vote is that big. We'll see.

[Mimikatz]

Sara: In areas like CA where voters register by party (or decline to state) yes, there are voter lists that campaigns buy and that's what you call off of. But depending on when you get them, they can be out of date, which is why GOTV needs to start early.

Here registration closes 30 days before the election, so that new, corrected lists can be prepared for use at the polls.

On the day of a primary election, an independent or DTS used to be able to request a ballot form one of the major parites, but I'm not sure they still can. Obviously it is different for CT, if indies are still reregistering as of today.

[DHinMI]

I'm curious what the phone bankers are saying, especially Joementum's. If I were in their shoes, I'd come up with some message that would scare people in to thinking the Dems are likely to lose the seat if Joementum isn't around to defend it. Especially for the less informed, that may provide a strong motivation for people typically unlikely to vote to get out and support Joementum.

[al-Fubar]

Likely-voter models are nearly useless, I suspect, because this is such an unusual election. Serious primary challenges to longstanding incumbents are rare. So are primary races that get massive media attention - meaning that voters get not only more media saturation, but a different kind.

So the real bottom line is that no one knows who is going to vote tomorrow, or obviously who they'll vote for.

[DHinMI]

I agree with Rick. This one is really hard to poll. Maybe the Q poll is correct, but if so it'll have more to do with luck than with skill. And it's possible the two campaigns aren't really competeting all that much over a common universe of voters as much as trying desparately to draw out completely different sub-groups. Thus, my comment about the phone banking and what messages they may be using on the phones.

[DemFromCT]

Joe is using more robo-calls, Ned more volunteers. I haven't been called by a joe person but I have been called by different ned people.

[KdmFromPhila]

I am curious about the role of out-state volunteers. After the '04 elections, there was a lot of discussion about the advantages of local activists vs. volunteers who were parachuted in. To judge by the blogs, a lot of people have come in from out of state to work for both of the candidates. How are CT voters reacting to their presence? Do they help or hurt one or the other candidate?

[DemFromCT]

I think some of the excellent questions need to be reviewed after the election. I know Q-poll is planning an "after the fact" poll to asnwer some quesitons like "Why'd you vote for...".

[al-Fubar]

Well, one thing we can predict with confidence is that tomorrow's results will be pored over minutely and bloviated over endlessly!

[DHinMI]

Rick, I usually agree with you, but not on this one:

tomorrow's results will be pored over minutely and bloviated over endlessly!

The second thing is almost always done without doing the first; that way the bloviation factor is higher. You don't want the pundits to get caught up by facts or anything, do you?

Oh, wait, you're not implying it will be the same group of people who will do both. Ahhhh, got it...

[knut wicksell]

It strikes me that the question is how hard the Dem capos run their ground game. They owe Lieberman next to nothing, and understand that if Ned comes in, they will still be in the saddle locally.

I've not been a party to CT politics in four decades, but I remember the Ribicoff campaign, and guys in my neighborhood off Orange Street in New Haven driving up in big black cadillacs handing out cash to their voters.

How one misses retail politics.

[demtom]

During that endless awful month post-election 2000, I told friends I wished I could be transported to a parallel universe where I had no emotional stake in the outcome -- because then I could enjoy what was a poli-sci geek's dream laboratory. I feel much the same about this primary, as we ponder so many questions: Is a stunningly large turnout good or bad for either candidate? Who are all those last-minute registerers? What does the last Quinnipiac poll MEAN -- is it Joe-closing-the-gap? Or are the three recent Q polls, all showing Ned 51-54%/Joe 41-47%, indicative of an electorate set in narrow stone? And, of course, what does this whole thing mean in the larger sense -- for Dems, for the Fall, for 2008?

I think a Lamont loss would be a tough pill to swallow for our side, after the delirious polling of last week -- a replay of the Kerry exit-poll situation -- and would lead to massive gloating by the Marshall Wittman/Marty Peretz wing. On the other hand, a Lamont win would lead to these same people shouting that the Democrats are going down the drain, a situation I also don't much care to go through.

Can we just get this thing over with?

[DemFromCT]

change comes hard, and politics ain't beanball.

Talk to everyone tomorrow.