PPP released their latest poll.
Markey 48
Gomez 41
Public Policy Polling’s newest survey of the US Senate election in Massachusetts finds Ed Markey’s lead over Gabriel Gomez growing to 7 points at 48/41, up from a 4 point margin right after the primary election 2 weeks ago
Gomez favorables are going south as well, down 6 points.
Please share widely!
fenway49 says
Still too close for comfort in my view, but we’re seeing Markey get close to 50% in the last couple. This one has 11% undecided and a lot of them probably break for Markey as they learn more.
Gomez’s crossover appeal seems be dropping. He was at 33/32 with Democrats in the last PPP poll, down to something like 20/52 in this one. That’s what’s driving the overall drop in his favorables. Turns out he is, after all, a Republican.
Gomez has a slightly larger lead among unenrolleds in this poll than in the prior PPP survey, but still 10 points below Scott Brown’s 2010 performance. Saw his first ad and didn’t think it was that great. I think Markey’s new ad showing Gomez on TV in April arguing against an assault weapon ban and a limit on high-capacity clips will leave a mark.
Still a close race and turnout is the key. Nobody let up.
Ryan says
as I am anything else. I sort of view politics like basketball — a double digit lead is only safe if you still have momentum on your side. Being up by 7, but having things go your way, is better than being up by 10 and them not, when we’re not even into the ‘4th quarter.’
It’s a very close race, but if Markey can still keep scoring political ‘hoops’ — like this recent ad on guns — then I’m going to feel very confident going forward.
afertig says
As an aside, I had always thought a bit about why it is that I love both politics and basketball, and I think this analogy makes a lot of sense and partially explains it. That and because basketball is absolutely the best major American sport.
fenway49 says
(I’d call it the worst)
sabutai says
basketball with the NBA. What they do in the NBA is glammed-up “streetball” and not basketball. Now get off my lawn.
stomv says
(just sayin’)
fenway49 says
They oversampled Dems (43% compared to about 37% statewide) but they oversampled Republicans even more (20%). Unenrolleds were undersampled.
lynne says
I think that depends on what a typical “special election” makeup tends to look like. And we seem to have a lot of data for that…so we can check it. But I imagine that you’d see more partisans at a special election than in the regular cycle.
Unenrolleds are (often) almost as apathetic about the act of voting as they are about picking a side. (With notable exceptions, of course.)
fenway49 says
JohnK made the same point and I agree. I was thinking only in terms of the state’s partisan composition but that’s not the relevant universe here.
tylersalt says
I love a good poll. I’m as big a fan of PPP and 538 as the next person. But do these really mean anything? I’m not comfortable drawing any kind of conclusions from these polls at all at this point. In a race that’ll probably have really low turnout (despite our best efforts), I’m skeptical as to need to waste pixels talking about each individual poll. Can someone disabuse me of this notion?
fenway49 says
I have a little bit of a background in public opinion and consumer perception surveys, so I find them interesting on a personal level. I also find them interesting as a campaign volunteer. Good trends make me feel a little better, like my work’s paying off. Bad trends make me more determined to give it all I’ve got. Only a 30-point lead with a week to go makes me even consider taking my foot off the gas.
As for whether they mean anything, it’s a truism that there’s only one poll that really matters. But (except for Suffolk) all of these polls are showing the same thing: Markey ahead but the race close enough that we need to keep working. In recent years the polling has been quite accurate, as it largely was in this year’s primary.
johnk says
but what they provide is a snapshot in time. If trusted, you can glean the mood of the electorate. Low turnout of a special election might be the reason for the oversampling as it could be that uncontrolled voters might not show up. Suffolk in special elections have a good track record, so it by no means should give anyone a sense of how people will vote if you do nothing between now and the end of June. But is gives you an indication of where things are now.
fenway49 says
By far the group with the highest number of undecideds. Many of the unenrolled are just not tuned in.
lynne says
I agree, the unenrolled situation is totally out of control. 😉
Ryan says
They mean that at the point in which the race is polled, that’s how it stands. But you can also take that data and draw some conclusions from that, like comparing it to data from the past. You can also use it to motivate the ‘troops,’ as a mechanism to fundraise or as a means to test how well the campaign is going — to see if changes need to be made.
As for wasting time talking about polls… I agree. The horse race stuff always draws most of what little attention these races are able to get, but if it’s any consolation, the only other news from this race that’s going on is going very badly for Gomez. He hasn’t had a good night since he won the primary and those first couple polls came out.
Mark L. Bail says
This is a political blog with a lot of uses. One is spreading news or information. Another is arguing point of view on selected topics. Another is gossiping. Another is learning. Understanding polls, learning to pick them apart, is a major part of politics.
Pixels are not scarce. They can’t be wasted. Blog posts are only a waste when you read them and don’t need to or when you comment on them. “Waste of time” blames the content; “selective attention” is the more appropriate term.