November 30, 2007 - 6:58am
Chellie Pingree’s pollster tells Pingree she is way ahead in the polls!
By Wally EdgeRoll Call Magazine (A DC beltway paper) covered a story about an early poll released by the Pingree camp. According to the Roll Call article, The Lake Research Partners poll showed Pingree at 41 percent, former State Senate Majority Leader Michael Brennan at 11 percent, State Sen. Ethan Strimling at 10 percent, York County district attorney and 2000 Senate nominee Mark Lawrence at 7 percent and Iraq War veteran Adam Cote at 6 percent.
Early polls are essentially weapons of mass spin, designed to depress the fundraising prospects of your opponents and boost your own self-esteem in the process. Beyond that, they are meaningless.
Unfortunately, newspapers blindly report these numbers, which only encourages the use of these spin-polls. However, Roll Call is not a paper that dutifully reports numbers and did a good job exposing the spin and hype of the Pingree poll. The article referenced the recently completed independent Critical Insights poll which showed “nearly nine out of 10 Mainers were unable to offer the names of any of the candidates running in the 1st district and also noted that only 4 percent were able to name Pingree or Strimling as candidates.”
The most interesting part about the poll that was not covered by Roll Call is that the Chellie Pingree and Celinda Lake routine played out in the Pingree – Collins race in 2002. That race was billed as the “race to watch” in 2002, with optimistic poll numbers always at the ready. Here is the June 2002 report from Charlie Cook at the National Journal:
“Now Democrats are circulating a Lake, Snell, Perry & Associates poll (May 15-19, of 400 likely voters), showing that Collins' support has dropped from 56 percent in March to 45 percent according to this new survey, while Pingree's support surged from 20 to 33 percent during the same period. The new poll numbers say Pingree's favorable ratings rose from 24 percent in a March survey of 600 likely voters -- before the wave of television advertising -- to 43 percent, but her unfavorable ratings remained constant at 13 percent.”
And a nice follow-up directly from the Pingree campaign came exactly two months later heralding more good news:
Aug 26, 2002 -- Portland, ME - A poll by national polling firm Lake Snell Perry & Associates shows U.S. Senate candidate and former Maine Senate Majority Leader Chellie Pingree continues to gain significant ground in her race against Republican Senator Susan Collins.Reaching an increasing number of voters with her message, Chellie has moved within 9 points of Collins, who remains under 50 percent support. The new numbers are: Collins 47 percent, Pingree 38 percent, with 15 percent undecided.
As one insider put it, “The fact was – she (Collins) was 60% before the race began, and she ended with 58% of the vote. Chellie got a respectable 42, but that's 16 points, not 9.”
This should serve as an excellent reminder for any would be candidate that the most important poll is the one on Election Day.
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That Critical Insights poll was a joke!
Wally, you can't be serious! (And if you are serious, you don't know much about polling.) More likely, you're just rooting for someone else, and trying to tear down the frontrunner.
The Critical Insights "poll" was hogwash. It didn't poll likely voters, or even people registered to vote, and it wasn't even restricted to the first district!! You think people in Houlton know who the hell is running for Congress outside their district?
The most ridiculous thing about that lame survey is that it asked a completely random sampling of people to name the candidates! There's a reason political polls don't do that: It bears no resemblance to the voting process! People don't write in names for a whole ballot, they choose them from an alphabetical list! Or have you not voted in this state before?
Whether you like it or not, Pingree is way ahead in the only legitimate poll so far.
Pingree's Poll
The point is the Lake/Pingree poll is far from "legitimate." In the 2002 race, no reputable pollster had Collins below 50%, except Pingree's pollster, and the press fell for it. Now she's up to the same tricks again. Is it too much to expect a tiny bit of honesty from our political candidates?
Analysis - Chellie Pingree - Today's important issues
http://newsofmaine.blogspot.com/2007/11/analysis-chellie-pingree-todays....
Bill
There's no question there was a bad poll in the 2002 race. Pollsters screw up, it happens. But that doesn't make this one wrong. It's the only poll yet conducted by a real pollster, and I don't see any evidence that it shouldn't be trusted.
Most notably, if ANY other candidate had a real poll that disagreed with this one, they wouldn't all be clinging desperately to the Critical Insights junk. Even Pingree's competitors know that thing is bogus.
Lake's poll, the only legit one, was a huge sample size (more than 600 likely primary voters, according to the paper I read).
The Critical insights one was tiny, like the kind of thing you'd run for product marketing. Totally different.
Not to mention, that's is the same firm that said the racino was gonna win in november. I think their credibility is nil.
Poll
If Pingree's poll was really legitimate, she'd release it too. But of course she hasn't, only selected highlights and PR spin. I guarantee you, on the first question in the poll, without prompting, Pingree is nowhere near 40%.
Here's another indication it's bogus. 86% name recognition for Pingree? 53% for Strimling? No way.
What, THAT old poll?
Polls this early out certainly are suspect. As a Pingree campaign staff member, I can assure you that we're not putting too much stock in this poll. There are many months to go before the primary. That's why we didn't release the results, and only publicly acknowledged the poll after someone else leaked it.
Whether or not the poll turns out to be an accurate prediction of the final result, we're feeling very encouraged by the enthusiasm and energy that Chellie's campaign is garnering. Our events are growing in size, we're gaining new volunteers daily, and voters seem surprisingly engaged, considering that the race is still almost six months away.
And Chellie is enjoying the fact that the 1st District is small enough that she can really get around and talk to lots of voters. If you want to see what she's been up to, check out the campaign website at http://chelliepingree.com.
Far from a poll
Two points need to be made.
1. The CI poll was unprompted. That is, folks were asked, "Can you name a candidate?", and had Strimling and Pingree tied at 4% (simply embarrassing for all candidates in the field, D's and R's).
2. I know a couple folks who were on the receiving end of this poll, and was told it dragged on for almost an hour. It was basically, "Chellie has done this and this and this. Are you now more likely to support her?", repeated ad naseum. Interestingly, they also polled on her weaknesses, asking things like, "Would someone leaving the state for 5 years, then coming back to run for office make you less likely to vote for a candidate?"
It's all bunk, and the Celinda Lake results are a positive-push poll at it's finest. Pingree must be getting scared.
Comment on local Polls
It is my understanding that the congressional item in Critical Insights' poll was designed to gauge initial name recognition among the slew of candidates in CD 1. Items specific to a CD are likely only asked of residents of that distict, not those living in Aroostook. As far as I know, that poll wasn't asking about candidate preference, likely voting, etc.
I also think that while they had the racino referendum passing, but I think the final voting result was right around their margin of error. The reality is that on issues like that which are fairly controversial, people often change their minds in the booths.
Also, their poll was spot-on for the passage of the bond referendum.
Also, the difference between a sample size of 400 vs. 600 for Celinda Lake's poll is minimal in terms of confidence intervals. The proportion of people living in CD 1 was likely smaller, to my earlier point.
I don't pay too much attention to polls, but the polls at Critical Insights are non-partisan and usually pretty accurate. By contrast, the SMS polls tend to have seemingly inflated favorability figures for Gov. Baldacci and some of his initiatives.
And I should have mentioned
We have an Open House next Friday, December 7th, from 5:00 to 8:00 PM at our campaign headquarters, 567 Congress Street, and you're all invited.
there's a big difference
You said:
Actually that's not true. Here's a quote from their survey:
They polled the whole state, and did NOT poll likely voters. (according to their own pdf.)
So the statistical difference between 600 likely Democratic primary voters and however many likely voters they MAY have surveyed, spread out all over the state, is indeed an important difference. And if, as you say, the proportion of people in CD 1 was smaller, that only makes the Critical Insights poll less likely to be accurate.
Thats ok, Dean Scontras is
Thats ok, Dean Scontras is the best candidate for the job anyways.
www.teamdean08.com
pingree
what we need is NOT another pro illegal immigrant democrat , dean will stop amnesty in Maine and America