PoliticsPA has a copy of poll results from PA-08. The opening paragraph tells the gist:
Our survey shows that Patrick Murphy is well-positioned to win both the Democratic primary against Andy Warren and the general election against incumbent Republican Mike Fitzpatrick if he has the resources to communicate with voters. A Murphy win in this suburban Philadelphia district could be key to Democrats re-taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
See the full survey for details.
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7 comments:
This is sort of a push poll, and while it shows voters are receptive to Murphy, it should taken with a big grain of salt.
OTOH, Fitzpatrick is an incumbent running at 49%, not a real good place to be.
Push Poll?
That's the first thing that people say when they don't like the results of a poll, but few understand what a push poll really is.
In a push poll (which isn't a really a poll at all, and no legitimate pollster uses), there is no random sample, there is no margin of error given, etc. This poll has both of those things. In a push poll, you call as many registered voters as you can and "push" information to them in order to taint the results. For example, a push poll by the Lazio campaign in 2000 asked the following question:
"If I were to tell you that Hillary Rodham Clinton took money from Arabs--the same kind of people who attacked the USS Cole--would that make you more likely to vote for her, or would you want to send her a message by voting for her opponent?"
See, push polls aren't meant to gauge opinion, they're meant to sway opinion.
And from everything I know about the Murphy Campaign, that's just not their style.
This isn't a push poll. It's an informed poll. Big difference in the two, though they are both bad to use if you are trying to actually learn public opinion, which is often uninformed.
An informed poll is, however, a great way to figure out what a challenger needs to do to win. In this case, it looks like Murphy needs to up his name recognition and bring down Fitz' positives.
The poll has both informed and uninformed. Seeing what happens between the uninformed and informed is how you figure out what works
Warren is reporting a Zogby poll that shows a dead heat.
eRobin,
I'm dubious. I like to see the official numbers on polling company letterhead. There's no link to that anywhere yet. Granted, it's a small thing, but I want as much from the sources as possible. What I'd like to see from both is the exact wording of the questions and the information provided. Generally, I have far more faith in what Murphy's people do than Warren's, but that's been glaringly obvious for months now.
I should clarify what I was trying to say in my earlier post. The poll does show that Murphy is in a good position if he can get his message out. Fitzpatrick, a very well known figure in Bucks Co politics, is only polling at 49% in the "uninformed" portion of this poll. That's poor in my book and makes him beatable.
I like Murphy, but I just wanted to caution about this not being a "normal" poll and that readers should take that into consideration when interpreting the results.
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