WA-08: Burner and Reichert Tie

by: Crisitunity

Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 4:58 PM EDT

Darcy Burner (D): 46 (41)
Dave Reichert (R-inc): 46 (49)
(MoE: ±5%)

Here's a nice turnaround from the last Research 2000 poll of the race in WA-08, which showed Burner down by 8 at a time when a number of other high-profile Democrats were starting to pull away (and spawned a boomlet of WA-08-related hand-wringing). Hot on the heels of the most recent SurveyUSA poll, which gave Burner a 4-point lead, comes another R2K showing a tied race, for an 8-point swing in two weeks. (We'll apparently never find out whether this race swung late or R2K somehow missed the boat with their first poll.)

As with many races that have heated up in recent weeks, the independents are starting to move over to the Democratic column and that's shifting the broader numbers: Burner's now leading 46-45 among independents, up from a 51-40 lead for Reichert in the last poll. Note that this sample was midway complete when the flap over Burner's degree first emerged, which turned into a counter-flap over Reichert's degree by the time the sample was complete, so it provides only a partial sense of whether the dueling kerfuffles effected the numbers.