Non-partisan poll

Im happy to finally see a non-partisan poll on this race. I dont care what party/group puts them out partisan polls can not be trusted and the  Momentum Analysis internal poll is a good example why.

Also have to love the other new Survey USA Poll

AL-2

Jay Love (R) 56%
Bobby Bright (D) 39%

http://www.surveyusa.com/clien...

A cat can have kittens in an oven but that doesn't make them biscuits.

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by: Kyle98632 @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 00:35:34 AM CDT

Yeah, but

That SUSA poll of AL-02 is pretty flawed -- it pegs the black vote at 16%. Anzalone and other pollsters have the black vote in the 26-27% range -- and that's considered a conservative estimate.

For all the love that SUSA gets, they don't always shit golden bricks.

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by: James L. @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 00:40:09 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

It's naive to insist

That ALL internal polls can't be trusted.

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by: DavidNYC @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 08:57:44 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I also found the Republican

Democrat cross tabs off. This district probably still has about 55-60% of it's voters registered as Democrats, but the poll had it 52% Republican. There's a big difference between a conservative Democrat and a Republican. A conservative Democrat is very open to voting for a Democrat, while a Republican is almost completely closed to the idea, which was why in that poll Love pulled an 89-11 margin among the Republican voters. Because seriously, 24% of the voters registered Democrats?

There was also the matter of understating the minority portion of the electorate by ten points.

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus

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by: ArkDem the Ragin Cajin @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 10:01:00 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Everything flows from SUSA underpolling blacks

Keep in mind that they do not weight by party, they show self-reported partisan ID.  

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by: andgarden @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 10:52:38 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Numbers like this might warrant a downgrade to Likely Republican.

This doesn't surprise me though. MO definitely is in a weird spot electorally. Dems seem to be having a hard time up and down the ballot. I'd be interested in seeing where Nixon is at. I'm not saying Judy Baker can't pull this one out but unless the numbers tighten up in the next month, right this one off.

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by: nrimmer @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 00:41:48 AM CDT

Man ever since I started school......

that's write not right. Jesus.

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by: nrimmer @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 00:43:58 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

That might be a bit hasty

Lets see a couple other polls first, or at least evidence that Missouri is taking a sudden R-leaning turn (i.e. McCain starts to pull away or Nixon slips).

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by: Nico @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 07:25:56 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm going to withhold judgement untill I see crosstabs

but something smells fishy.

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by: Populista @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 01:03:24 AM CDT

2 guesses

SUSA has consistently shown odd numbers on the youth vote.  Nationally we are getting numbers showing Obama up 20-40 points amongst people under 35.  And yet SUSA usually shows things way different, like McCain winning youth in places like MN, which is absurd.

Beyond that though, Missouri seems to be one of the few swing states where Obama has had extra trouble, unlike places like Iowa and Virginia and North Carolina where he is doing better than expected.  Does anyone know why?

"Keep the Faith"

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by: blue south @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 01:20:18 AM CDT

I don't think a lot of the white folk ever quite got over Jeremiah Wright.

Same with Ohio. Most of these rural mid-Western swing voters that voted for Bush in 04 and Strickland and McCaskill in 06 figured they'd give the black guy one shot. After "Goddamn America!" and that whole San Franciscan fundraiser fiasco, they pegged him as another Al Sharpton and that was it.

Missouri is probably one of the few states Hillary would have had no problem with. If she were the nominee, I guarantee she'd be outpolling McCain there today.

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by: Tyler Oakley @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 01:31:49 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I don't know

She wasn't doing that much better than Obama in Missouri, if at all, at the end, even after Jeremiah Wright.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

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by: nrafter530 @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 09:38:08 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Little Dixie

Isn't this part of the state what they call Little Dixie? If you go to Hannibal with Mark Twain and run into Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, they can probably take you down by the Mississippi where you can hear Ni@@er Jim singing Old Man River.
;-)

I'm sort of Southern myself, as a Texan and a great-grandson of a colonel in the Confederate Army, so I know it's gonna be harder in these places for Barack Obama and the Democrats this year. But I'm by no means giving up.

From my own considerable observations and experiences among bigots, I know that it's rarely personal. They don't like the group, but they don't hate individuals they know. That is, almost every bigot who hates blacks plural has one or several individual blacks he likes. "Old Tom down the road is a good old ni@@er," said my uncle, intending to compliment the black man.

Nationally we see that same phenomenon. Voters may hate "those people" who live in public housing and make babies and collect welfare blah blah blah. But they still like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, or Colin Powell, not to mention Al Roker or a dozen other TV celebrities. They often like and respect a black cop or sheriff's deputy or schoolteacher they happen to know. They hate "them" but not "him."

The challenge for Obama is to get to be known as an individual, not as merely another one of "them." So the Jeremiah Wright stuff was deadly because it closed the ears of those he needs to reach in the Southern and Border states and "Reagan Democrat" territory (which overlapped the George Wallace Democrat territory). On the other hand, Sarah Palin and Hillary and even Joe Biden may help to get them to listen to Obama again before November.

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by: WoodyNYC @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 10:15:52 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Why would you necessarily expect Obama

To do as well as Kerry here?

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by: DavidNYC @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 08:59:25 AM CDT

I think most people are expecting Obama to outperform Kerry nearly nationwide

because McCain is a weaker Republican, Obama is a stronger Democrat, better year for us, strong candidates downballot, etc.  

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by: JeremiahTheMessiah @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 09:16:09 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

In some places Obama will not outperform Kerry

for example, I expect Obama to do worse than Kerry in places like Tennessee and Kentucky and probably some select blue states.

I am sorta surprised Obama isn't doing better here. If my  memory serves me correctly, Dukakis won this district.  

Liberty Avenue Politics - a place for politics in Southern Queens

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by: nrafter530 @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 09:36:22 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

How is McCain a weaker Republican?

If anything I think he's stronger than Bush.  Both Bush and Kerry were weak candidates, IMO, though I still haven't quite figured out just how Bush won the 2004 election.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway: http://www.washingtonmonthly.c...

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by: Glenn Magus Harvey @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 15:24:07 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

That's an easy one

If anything I think he's stronger than Bush.  Both Bush and Kerry were weak candidates, IMO, though I still haven't quite figured out just how Bush won the 2004 election.  

He won in 2004 because Dems were afraid to be Dems.  Our candidates, especially Kerry took wishy-washy positions on many issues rather than having the courage of their convictions to call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, etc.  Voters never really understood where Kerry was coming from.  In the end the voters went for the crook they knew rather than the guy they felt they didn't know (Kerry).  Thankfully our side has grown a backbone since then... well, sorta.

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by: ChadInFL @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 15:39:12 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

McCain's fundraising

$174,165,949 without August.  

$254,817,068 Through August.  

I doubt McCain raises 70 million dollars in August.  

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by: JeremiahTheMessiah @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 16:37:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Bush raised 254 mil through august*

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by: JeremiahTheMessiah @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 16:37:47 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

$47 million

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...

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by: James L. @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 16:43:22 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

McCain-Palin just had a huge rally in the 9th district the day before

the two day poll. It was the biggest rally McCain has had all year, as it was one of the first where he rolled out Palin as Vice-President.

The Republicans had tons of earned media over this event and Blaine Luetkemeyer and Kenny Hulshof were featured speakers on stage with McCain and Palin.

I have to say that the timing of this poll wasn't ideal for us.

If there can be convention bumps, I imagine there can almost certainly be rally bumps locally especially in areas where a campaign rally is a major event and gets a great deal of local media coverage.  

This I think would explain both why Obama undeperformed Kerry in the poll and why Luetkemeyer was better known than Baker in the poll. Luetkemeyer's name was still fresh from television appearances and press coverage the day before.

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by: Wayne in Missouri @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 09:45:24 AM CDT

Good local report

Thanks for this info.

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by: WoodyNYC @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 10:19:23 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I still think the answer is in timing, not crosstabs

I would expect the Republican brand to get a nice bubble the day after 14,000-23,000 people showed up to see McCain roll out Palin in a 9th District community.

And Luetkemeyer sharing the stage and getting speaking time with McCain, Palin, Bond and Hulshof probably helped his standing the day after.

If this poll had been conducted the day after Obama was in the district drawing large crowds and Baker was speaking on stage and getting free earned media on stage with Obama, Biden, McCaskill, Gephardt, Nixon, Volkmer etc. I suspect the results might be different.

Here is more on the rally:

http://www.emissourian.com/sit...

"As part of the build up to McCain's speech, the crowd heard from Sen. Kit Bond, Gov. Matt Blunt, former Sen. Jim Talent, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kenny Hulshof and Republican 9th District congressional candidate Blaine Luetkemeyer."

On a different note I see Baker has a large lead among moderates in the crosstabs. It's also hard to believe only 2% are undecided at this point given the low name recognition of both candidates at this point, and that 10% are choosing another candidate (I think the only other candidate in the race is Libertarian Tamara Millay).  

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by: Wayne in Missouri @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 11:46:54 AM CDT

MO-09

Just can trust SUSA anymore

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by: bklonsky @ Thu Sep 04, 2008 at 18:01:36 PM CDT

I trust them

Just not for election-day accuracy.  But hey, this poll illustrates the effects of a rally bounce quite explicitly.

Bill Posey is not half-alligator...and is outclassed by Davy Crockett anyway: http://www.washingtonmonthly.c...

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by: Glenn Magus Harvey @ Fri Sep 05, 2008 at 05:37:38 AM CDT

[ Parent ]