7News/Suffolk. Here’s the link.
Gabrieli 32
Patrick 24
Reilly 20
Undecided 24
A lot more undecideds than the other poll. No crosstabs yet.
Quick hit reaction: Obviously good news for Gabrieli … but I still think 32% is not exactly pulling away.
More to the point: How does one account for the differences between this poll and CBS4’s? Whom do you believe and why? Do any of these mean anything?
UPDATE (by David): There’s more than meets the eye to the Suffolk poll, since the press release is not very complete. See my post for more details.
Please share widely!
Throughout 2002 the Suffolk poll best hit the final Primary results.
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And check out the numbers against Healey. “Gabrieli will be the strongest Democratic candidate to defeat Lt. Governor Kerry Healey in the final election. Gabrielis margin over Healey was a whopping 21% (46%-25%), while Reilly topped Healey by 9% (38%-29%), and Patrick led Healey by 8% (38%-39%).”
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See ya, Kerry. Thanks for stopping by.
The difference is in the questions they’re asking. SUSA asks you to imagine yourself in the voting booth. Who are you pulling the lever for? Suffolk asks you who you are leaning toward.
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SUSA is forcing a choice, whereas Suffolk is just asking for impressions. One interpretation is that there are people who, if the election were right now, would vote for Patrick, but are still open to changing their minds (and recorded as Patrick in SUSA, but undecided in Suffolk).
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I’ll have to look at the crosstabs before any other analysis is possible. In any event, polls are like rorschach tests. What people see in them tells you as much about the viewer as the electorate.
why are the undecided numbers so much higher for Suffolk? Wouldn’t you expect the opposite? I mean, if all I have to do is say how I’m “leaning,” rather than say who I’m voting for, it’s easier to answer with a name rather than say “undecided,” isn’t it?
For example, if someone asked me who I was leaning toward in the LG’s race, I’d say I was undecided. If they told me I was in the voting booth and I had to pull the lever for someone, I’d have an answer.
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The difference is the voting booth. There is no ‘undecided’ on the ballot.
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There are other differences, of course, SUSA uses robo-calls for example, and more people may be willing to tell a machine how they’re going to vote than they would a live person.
but there’s obviously still an “undecided” option in the Survey USA poll, since 6% of the people are still choosing it.
is the Survey USA is an automated call where the respondent pushes a number to correspond with his/her answer. Whomever picks up the phone and chooses to answer the survey may do so. This Survey USA poll has a very low number of undecideds, only 6%. With a month to go before the primary, the undecideds are undoubtedly higher The Survey USA filtered the respondents to 429 with a margin of error of 4.8%.
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Conversely, The Suffolk University poll is conducted by a pollster, David Palleologos. This poll had 600 respondents with a margin of error of 4%. The undecideds in this poll are much higher at 24% which seems to make more sense. The findings are: “In the Democratic Primary, Gabrieli (32%) topped candidate Deval Patrick (24%) and Attorney General Tom Reilly (20%), while 24% of likely Democratic voters were undecided. Gabrielis 8-point lead contrasts sharply with the June 7NEWS/Suffolk University poll, which showed Gabrieli trailing Patrick by 9% and Reilly by 3%.
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Chris Gabrieli is clearly the person to beat in both the primary and the final election, said David Paleologos, Director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. His widespread strength cuts across all demographics including gender, party, age, and geography.
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The 7NEWS/Suffolk University poll also revealed that Gabrieli will be the strongest Democratic candidate to defeat Lt. Governor Kerry Healey in the final election. Gabrielis margin over Healey was a whopping 21% (46%-25%), while Reilly topped Healey by 9% (38%-29%), and Patrick led Healey by 8% (38%-30%.
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With third party candidates drawing away votes in this race, 45% becomes the new magic number to win the final election, said Paleologos. Today, Chris Gabrieli already has 46% and thats not counting any of the 20% who are undecided. This is obviously GREAT NEWS FOR THE GABRIELI CAMPAIGN!
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Chris Gabrieli’s campaign has not only been on TV with commercials but Chris’ grassroots have been working tirelessly by canvassing areas with Gabrieli literaure, phone banking, doing standouts, marching in parades etc. Additionally, Chris has been bringing his message of results to people throughout Massachusetts with his town hall forums. Also, he has opened up several campaign headquarters throughout the state which give voters easier access to his campaign. The hard work of the Gabrieli campaign can account for this 17 point turnaround.
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Four weeks from today and Deval Patrick and Tom Reilly are going at each other left and right?
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I’m going with Gabrieli.
The suspense was killing us!
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😉
the suspense of the BMG endorsement. :>)
🙂
That is what I call Justice..
Suffolk 7 news has it correct .
Gabrieli is taking over the race ..
Why would anyone, whether they support Gabrieli, Patrick, or Reilly think that it is a good idea to gloat right now? There are two wildly different poll numbers here, so for anyone to claim that one poll is correct and that the other is wrong, without pointing out some flaw in the actual polling methodology would be asinine.