| By Clem Guttata
Yesterday, there was excitement around the Internets as "leaked" Oliverio campaign polling numbers were discussed. I didn't post about it because the numbers looked unbelievable to me and, frankly, any campaign can leak a couple of numbers without any details anytime they want to generate a little bit of supporter buzz.
In response, Rep. Mollohan has done something that campaigns rarely do. He's released the entire details of a campaign tracking poll--the entire details including all of the polls questions, the poll methodology, and results. These are the essential details required to make sure the pollster isn't manipulating results through question order or question wording.
Here's the press release from Rep. Mollohan:
Mollohan Campaign Dismisses Oliverio Poll Claims and Releases Tracking Poll Results
Congressman Alan B. Mollohan's campaign today released poll results showing that Mollohan is leading his opponent in the Democratic primary by 9 percentage points.
The poll shows Mollohan ahead of Mike Oliverio 45% to 36%, with 19% undecided. It was conducted by Frederick Polls, a highly-respected, national research firm. It was based upon interviews with 400 likely primary voters and was completed April 21-22, 2010.
The Mollohan campaign publically released the question, sequence and methodology used by Frederick Polls to conduct the survey.
"These results show that the voters of the First District are not buying what Mike Oliverio is trying to sell - a right-wing agenda to cut federal support for Medicare, Social Security, and veterans and pass even more 'free-trade' laws that have already sent thousands of our steel and manufacturing jobs overseas." said Pam Van Horn, Mollohan's campaign manager.
"West Virginians are looking for answers on jobs, health care, retirement security, education, and the other issues important to their families," Van Horn added, "and that's exactly what Alan Mollohan works for each day in the United States Congress."
Mollohan is not only solidly ahead of Oliverio in the head-to-head match-up, his favorable rating is also 10 points higher than Oliverio's. Pointing to his high favorable rating among the undecided voters, Keith Frederick, president of the polling firm, said that, "Mollohan is also in good shape to gain enough of the undecided voters to achieve victory."
Van Horn dismissed poll results recently released by Oliverio's campaign as "just the latest sign of Mike Oliverio's shaky grasp on the truth. First, he broke his promise that he was running not 'to tear Alan Mollohan down.' Then he pretended that he doesn't chair an organization working to privatize Social Security and restrict workers' rights - when his group's agenda has been well documented in the public record. And now he releases results from a self-serving poll conducted by his campaign manager."
Van Horn emphasized that Keith Frederick's poll was carefully structured to eliminate poll information bias.
"There are many ways a pollster can ask a question to get whatever result he wants," Van Horn said. "He can sample some parts of the District more heavily than others, he can fail to limit responses to likely Democratic primary voters, or he can bias the responses by providing false information before asking the head-to-head match-up question. Keith Frederick is a nationally-respected pollster, and he is not going to attach his name to anything less than an honest poll."
For those interested, I've uploaded the PDF file the Rep. Mollohan campaign released from Keith Frederick's poll. The details show that Rep. Mollohan is in good shape, but cannot let up in the final two weeks of the primary campaign.
There are a small opening here for Oliverio -- Mollohan is below 50% and Oliverio still has room to improve his name recognition. But, that's a nearly impossible opening to exploit via negative campaign advertising. Oliverio will have to present an alternative positive vision for WV-01 to win over undecideds and make a name for himself. He's running out of time to do that.
Meanwhile, Mollohan needs to close the deal with those undecideds and make sure to get out the vote. |
