A very interesting report from Rasmussen, which shows Coakley still in the lead, but not by as much, and with some other big differences as well.
Massachusetts State Survey of 567 Likely Democratic Primary Voters
Conducted November 23, 2009
By Rasmussen ReportsCoakley 36%
Capuano 21%
Khazei 14%
Pagliuca 14%
Some other candidate 5%
Not sure 10%
… NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence
Great news for Alan Khazei, who is at least 8 points higher in this poll than in the others we’ve seen — and who is tied with Steve Pagliuca, despite having been outspent roughly 87:1. OK news for Mike Capuano, who polls about where he was in the last one, but who appears to have less ground to make up. Not such good news for Martha Coakley, who is several points lower than in previous polls.
Favorable/Unfavorable ratings also tell an interesting story. The following numbers combine “very” with “somewhat” in both fav and unfav.
Candidate: fav/unfav (not sure)
Coakley: 61/30 (8)
Capuano: 62/26 (12)
Khazei: 47/31 (22)
Pagliuca: 49/37 (14)
Frankly, I’m not sure I really believe those numbers. In particular, I doubt that Khazei has had enough exposure to have unfav ratings that are that high. Nonetheless, they’re food for thought.
Particularly because, as Frank notes, there will be much talk about Afghanistan next week, things could get pretty interesting before Dec. 8.
two more weeks of 7.5% gains and we have a race on primary day.
have Khazei only 7 points back from Capuano. Not to rain on your parade … đŸ˜‰
that’s two weeks of 11% gains. I wouldn’t rule it out. Bottom line? Nobody has been paying attention to this race. Nobody.
Add the two “favorable” and “unfavorable” numbers together and get (f/u)
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p>Coakley—61%/30%
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p>Capuano–62%/26%
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p>Khazei—-47%/31%
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p>Pagliuca–49%/37%
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p>I would not have figured Capuano as Mr. Congeniality in this race!
Capuano has better net favorables than Martha? That surprises the snot out of me, and I frankly have trouble believing it. I’d love to know what “other candidate” is being favored by one out of 20 voters. KennedySeat has some other, er, confusing numbers.
Like I said in the post, I don’t really believe the fav/unfav numbers.
They’re both well-respect politicians. Why should anyone find it surprising that one has a higher favorability rating than the other — if by the tiniest of margins.
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p>I’m not going to say it isn’t an outlier, right now it is, but it just may end up being right. Who knows?
Capuano was a well-known politician among people who know politicians. People in general didn’t have a formed opinion of the Congressman, and his debate performances were aggressive enough to lead me to wonder what they’d do to his unfavorables.
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p>Coakley’s number (probably) represent more people knowing about her, leading them to be more likely to have an opinion somewhere along the favorable/unfavorable spectrum.
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p>With less name recognition, Capuano’s numbers (probably) represent a smaller group of people who have an opinion on that graph. That smaller population can have fav/unfav in the same proportion as Coakley, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can extrapolate that towards truth.
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p>For example (using grossly distorted numbers for illustration sake…): if you poll a hundred people and 75 people say they like Martha Coakley and 24 say they don’t like her, then her rate is both true and representative. The one person who doesn’t know about her, and doesn’t form an opinion, is a rounding error.
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p>If, however, of those same 100 people, only 4 said they knew about Capuano and 3 of the 4 said they liked him and 1 of the 4 said they didn’t, then Capuano will have the same fav/unfav as Martha. 75%/25%, but it won’t be either true or representative. If you add one more person to the unfavorable column, then the ratio becomes 60%/40%. With smaller populations, each individual contributes to a greater share of the outcome…
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p>That’s why name recognition is important: Capuano’s numbers are likely muddled (by how much I have no way of knowing…) by lesser name recognition. The same is probably true (or more true) for Pagliuca and Khazei.
I can buy a shrinking 15 point gap between martha and Mike (I think Martha wins by five points–a big win in most 4 people primaries, but will it be considered “razor thin”?). But as much as I do like Khazei, he didn’t shine in the only tv debate; he not only had a limited tv buy, but his tv message was also limiting–as discussed here. I just don’t see him tied with pags. And you can have all the problems in the world with Fav/Unfav…but it doesn’t explain how 78% of those polled have an opinion of Khazie, given his limited exposure…unless his 500 canvassers randomly knocked on the doors of those surveyed.
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p>I just don’t have confidence in that poll, given the other two that have been in the field. Did Rasmussen poll this race before?
at the time, the candidates were Coakley, Capuano, Lynch, Tierney, and Markey, IIRC. Not all that helpful.
Coakley’s Globe poll numbers have been very consistent:
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p>Candidate: Current (last week) {3 weeks ago}
Coakley: 43 (44) {42}
Capuano: 22 (16) {16}
Pagliuca: 15 (17) {15}
Khazei: 6 (3) {5}
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p>This consistency, to me, is important. Maybe more important than differences from one pollster to another, especially when one drops in every couple of months. Determining “likely” voters in this case must be driving all (or at least both pollsters) nuts. We’ve never had an election like this at this time of year. More people are thinking about finding a tie for crazy Uncle Harry than thinking about this election.
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p>This Rassmussen number also isn’t very different than the last Rasmussen poll, way back in September. (Which was light years ago for this race, I admit.) And her favorables are still pretty good. And she’s got statewide recognition and organization.
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p>(Why Pags and Khazei have such low favorability numbers in the Rasmussen poll I don’t understand. But that isn’t good.)
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p>The Globe does show Capuano picking up support over the three weeks, at least in the last week. In a longer race, with voters paying more attention, he might might have made a game of it. But, Thanksgiving starts the holiday season in earnest, and voter interest probably drops even further.
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p>Average the Globe and Rasmussen polls and she’s at about 40% and he’s at 21%. I just don’t see him gaining that much ground without something major happening; or him getting an early Christmas present.
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It’s too bad that Rasmussen doesn’t offer their crosstabs for free, because it would be interesting to compare to the Globe (and other) polls. I suspect that this isn’t so much recent “movement” for one candidate or another as much as it is different assumptions about the likely voter screens. (Rasmussen had Coakley around her current support in its last poll of the race (38%) two-and-a-half months ago, though Capuano was only at 7% in the previous poll and at 21% now. But that was way back in September, so the comparison probably doesn’t mean much).
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p>If Rasmussen’s likely voter assumptions are correct, then the other candidates probably have at least a small shot (though Pagliuca’s numbers should be much higher given his blanket advertising). If the Globe’s assumptions are correct, the race is likely over. It would be nice to see those crosstabs…
I actually discussed this on Today’s LeftAhead. I would imagine it’s very, very difficult to predict who turns out at a special election like this. Massachusetts has literally never had one like it before. This is one of those races that is far more likely than most others to have results that are unlike the polls, because of how difficult it would be to guess at what the turnout would be and who, exactly, will bother to turn out to begin with. Will certain segments of the populace be ramped up for a primary like this? Etc.
The old adage is that the only poll that counts is on election day, but, I’m seriously believing that with this race.
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p>While it’s clear that Coakley is the definite front runner, I wouldn’t be surprised by an Obama/Clinton NH result.
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p>I’m not even sure to what degree we can trust any of these polls beyond Coakley being the front runner and Caps pulling up 2nd.
…because I suspect people saying they are “for” a candidate in any of these polls is no indication at all of who will actually get ID’d supporters to mosey on over to the polls and cast a vote.
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p>By this measure, my hunch is that either Capuano –who has proven he can run a stellar election day operation– and Khazei –who appears to be laying substantial GOTV groundwork for this very untraditional race– will most defy the polls.
…in which case, advantage Coakley.
I suspect Pagliuca’s support is extremely soft, and wouldn’t be surprised to see half of it vaporize in the next week. If Cap gets most if it, we may have a real race.
I’m not sure what to make of this race. If this was a general election and not a special I’d say Coakley would be safe with two weeks to go. But with so few people paying attention to this race how many will actually vote on the 8th?
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p>I say no more than half a million and probably less. Whichever candidate has done the most grassroots work will win the race if that’s the case.
Assuming this poll is correct, and wishing we could see the crosstabs, a few brief thoughts.
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p>Did Pagliuca’s early tv buy get what it’s going to get, and now he’s hit capacity? Interesting that he seems to be stable or even maybe slowly moving down over the last two weeks. Did the bad stories in the Herald and Globe make an impact? Has his stand that he’ll vote for any health care bill whatsoever, even if that means far more restrictions on women’s ability to have an abortion than the status quo hit people the wrong way? Did we just see evidence of just how much support tv can buy an unknown candidate?
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p>Getting to within the teens is good news for Capuano, and having nearly-equal favorables to Coakley is also good, but 15 points in two weeks is a huge gap to fill, and no doubt there’s bad news in this poll for Capuano too.
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p>For all the Khazei supporters who have said to me “Alan Khazei’s numbers are not the margin of difference between Coakley and Capuano…” well, now it may be. Congratulations. When you think about the opportunity to elect an actual progressive to the U.S. Senate, Khazei is now unofficially in the role of spoiler. To you, I make this pledge: Though I believe Capuano is far and away the best candidate in this race, if in the days before the election, I see believable evidence that Khazei has a better chance than Capuano of defeating Tom Reilly (err… I mean Martha Coakley), I will switch my vote. I hope you will consider the same.
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p>Disclosure: I’m a supporter and volunteer for Mike Capuano.
on money spent in politics, perhaps most particularly money spent on ads. Doug, you should have spent some of that ad money on door knockers and phone callers…