Another Poll Indicates Deadlocked Race in VA-05

I love polling data (0.00 / 0)

Couple comments.  I can't see any crosstabs other than the one page summary you linked but a few things stood out.

1)  If I'm reading this right, their sample was 19% African-American.  While SUSA is likely undersampling A-A vote, this seems to be oversampling (by a lot).

2)  Not even Perriello believes he'll see a 35R-33D turnout.  A plus 5-10 R turnout is MUCH more likely which would obviously move the number.

3)  Bizarre that they refer to the "Raleigh/Richmond" region.  I'd love to know what that means as neither Raleigh or Richmond are in the 5th and Raleigh and Richmond don't comprise a region by anyone's definition.

4)  Interesting that the "unbiased third party" polling (SUSA) shows such a huge Hurt lead yet the "biased" polling (Perriello's internals, DCCC and LCV/SEIU) shows such a tight race.  I'm not saying either group is right.  Just interesting.

Personally, I think the race is about a 10 point race, right in between the polling we've seen from folks supporting Perriello and the SUSA polls.

---

by: GregHabeeb @ Tue Oct 05, 2010 at 19:07:50 PM UTC

Well they probably mean (0.00 / 0)

that Perriello would need to draw in Raleigh and Richmond to his C.D. to stand a chance.  

---

by: Venu @ Tue Oct 05, 2010 at 22:27:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Welcome to Virginia! (0.00 / 0)

Hi Greg, good to have you in the Commonwealth of Virginia!

First off, the Richmond area is in reference to the Richmond media market. Same thing with Raleigh. A lot of folks get their television from either Richmond stations or Raleigh stations in the 5th district. Although these markets are all of the 5th, it's important to get a representative sample of them.

I think it's interesting that you leave out that the Republican organization the American Action Forum had a poll of the 5th district and found a 6 point race without including Jeff Clark. Now this poll has Clark just at 1%, but others have him as high as 6%. That's well within the range of his base of support within the margin of error. If it's a ten point race, then you're basically saying that it's even more of a lead for Hurt than the Republicans are willing to say.

It's about a two to three point race right now, right in between what we've seen from both parties.

---

by: FreeDem @ Tue Oct 05, 2010 at 23:41:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Welcome to Virginia? (0.00 / 0)

Really?  Did you really just welcome me to Virginia?  Sorry, you're only about 30 years late.  Actually, I guess I've been a VA resident for 31 of my 34 years of life.

As for the regional designations, no one, I repeat, NO ONE, considers the 5th in the "Raleigh region."  If anything, you could call some of it the Greensboro region.  Furthermore, I've lived in Virginia for 31 years and spent 7 of those years in college in NC and have never heard anyone lump Richmond/Raleigh together.

As for the other poll, frankly, I just forgot about it.  Not paying as much attention to the 5th as the 9th.  Don't think I ever looked at the cross tabs so I don't have much of an opinion other than the top line number.

As for the "its more of a lead than Repubublicans will say"...that's absolutely true.  The single biggest fear right now on the R side in that race is apathy.  Too many people watching from afar chalked the 5th up as a win way too early.  I've said for a year Perriello was much tougher than people imagine.  In this case, Hurt wants/needs people to think it's close.  Not saying that influenced polling in anyway but it's a fact.

---

by: GregHabeeb @ Wed Oct 06, 2010 at 02:17:39 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Media Markets (0.00 / 0)

Hi Greg. I assumed you weren't from Virginia because otherwise you'd understand a little bit about the media markets in Virginia. No one would ever say that Danville is in the Roanoke region, but it receives television from the Roanoke-Lynchburg media market. A portion of the 5th District is close enough to Richmond to be in the Richmond media market, such as Farmville. And if you ever go down to Mecklenburg, you'll be in the Raleigh media market. A lot of the homes there get their news from North Carolina based television stations.

---

by: FreeDem @ Wed Oct 06, 2010 at 11:54:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Regarding SUSA (0.00 / 0)

I went back and read their crosstabs.  They had 12% African American (versus 19% here) and had a +11R weighting (versus +2R here).  That certainly accounts for some of the difference but not nearly all of it.

I'd love to see this poll's cross tabs.  To arrive at that number based on a +2R weighting, Perriello and Hurt would almost certainly have to be splitting Independents 50-50.  That would be pretty amazing (and, to me, unbelievable).

---

by: GregHabeeb @ Tue Oct 05, 2010 at 19:33:06 PM UTC

Oh (0.00 / 0)

hell yeh. Happy to see this. Hurt is blowing his campaign by not debating plus Tom has had some excellent hard hitting ads around here, while all Hurt has had is an ad with him whining about Tom's "negative ads".

Like the rethugs NEVER do any negative ads.

riiiggghhht. They are as pure as the driven snow.

---

by: VADEM @ Tue Oct 05, 2010 at 21:57:31 PM UTC

Hurt a Lightweight (0.00 / 0)

Robert Hurt is a lightweight, chosen for his telegenic looks and bland personality. He won't debate because he knows he would be destroyed by Tom Perriello...and Jeff Clark, for that matter. (At least Clark has positions and can defend them. Hurt simply mouths talking points, over and over and over.)

---

by: Elaine in Roanoke @ Tue Oct 05, 2010 at 22:15:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Tom works his heart out (0.00 / 0)

The voters may not be geniuses, but they can sense sincerity and commitment.  Tom's the real deal and there's no better resource for a campaign to have.

I hope the DCCC is paying attention and will boost his campaign accordingly.  

Impeachinelli! Now on Twitter.

---

by: kindler @ Wed Oct 06, 2010 at 12:09:24 PM UTC