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Monday, November 06, 2006
Rich Galen :: Townhall.com Columnist
It ain't over till it's...
by Rich Galen
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Poll
What was the biggest suprise of Election Day?



Dear Mr. Mullings:

Are you still claiming that the GOP will hold onto the US House, or have you finally gotten back on your meds?

  • You know? I'm glad you asked that. You would have to be living in Kazakhstan watching the evening news hosted by Borat Sagdiyev to believe Tuesday is going to be a glorious night for the Republican Party.

    •  

  • The breathless predictions in the Popular Press this past weekend in trying to convince us that election day will not just leave the GOP as the minority party, but as a minor party may be, as they say, premature.

  • There's a reason they actually hold the elections.

  • While you might not have seen this on the front page of your local paper, the Pew Research Center for People and the Press released a poll on Saturday which showed the generic vote among likely voters has closed to 47% - 43% in favor of Democrats.

  • The specific question was:

    • "If the 2006 elections for U.S. Congress were being held TODAY, would you vote for the Republican Party's candidate or the Democratic Party's candidate for Congress in your district?"

    NOTE: To try and get as clear a result as possible, the order of the parties (Republican or Democrat) were reversed for half the sample)

  • The Pew polls are not known as a Republican-leaning activities. In fact, there have been complaints among Republicans that Pew tends toward samples which lean Democratic.

  • In this poll, which included 2,368 registered voters of whom 1,795 were deemed "likely" voters - which are the only ones we care about with 36 hours to go.

  • The party split in the survey was 34% Republican, 34% Democrat and 27% independent.

  • The generic vote in the Pew poll in September was 40-53 Democrat among likely voters.

  • In the October poll the difference had narrowed from minus 13 to minus 11, statistically insignificant.

  • But last week the deficit in the generic vote narrowed to just FOUR percentage points.

  • It is an axiom that Republican candidates for Congress tend to outperform the pre-election polling as to generic vote by 3-5 percentage points. If that holds with this latest survey, the GOP might play to a draw on Tuesday.

  • But, let's not get crazy. This election season has produced a dreadful environment for Republicans. It is unlikely that the GOP will maintain its 14 seat majority in the US House.
    • Continued...
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    About The Author

    Rich Galen has been a press secretary to Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich. Rich Galen currently works as a journalist and writes at Mullings.com

    Be the first to read Rich Galen's column. Sign up today and receive Townhall.com delivered each morning to your inbox.

    Join The Debate!

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    (11 comments so Far)
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    Reply # 1
    Date: Nov 7, 2006 - 4:11 PM EST
    Pollsters
    Most polls aren't woth the powder to blow them to hell. The generic poll is really a joke. The only useful polls are more specific. Do you approve of congress - 16% yes recently - way too vague to be informative. Do you approve of the job your own representative is doing - 60% recently shows the normal pro-incumbent sentiment. As election day approaches, races always tighten up. It's very easy to blow off stea to a pollster, but once you enter the voting booth the gravity of the act kicks in and sanity takes over.

    The way polling questions are phrased has more to do with the results than the sentiment of the sample(Are you going to vote for a Dem or are you a dipsh*t?)(Do you agree with compassionate people who support Demos?)

    dmathew1: change your name to Phillip Nolan Jr.
    Flag as Offensive

    Reply # 2
    Date: Nov 7, 2006 - 3:05 PM EST
    RINOs
    Don't forget Graham and Warner.
    Flag as Offensive
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