Lieberman.....52%
Lamont..........35%
Schlesinger......6%
Courant/UCONN (2nd District):
Simmons.....46%
Courtney.....44%
Undecided....8%
The Q-Poll is not up on the Quinnipiac website yet. It was taken after Monday's debate. For all the noise made by and about Alan Schlesinger this week, it seems that his effect on the race is still negligible. That's bad news for Ned Lamont, and excellent news for Joe Lieberman.
The race in the 2nd District is exactly what you would expect: a dead heat (the margin of error is 3.5%). This one is going to come down to who can turn out the most voters, or perhaps which way the national winds are blowing. Should be great to watch.
Update The Q-Poll is up on their website. It also polls the gubernatorial race:
Rell................59%
DeStefano.....33%
Undecided......7%
Although the poll claims an upswing for DeStefano (a gain of about three points, give or take), it's clear that DeStefano is so far out of this thing that there really isn't much hope. This poll was taken after the first debate with Rell, and it's unlikely that his performance at the second debate will win him much more support. Rell has the support of 32% of Democrats, 91% of Republicans and, most importantly, 68% of independents.
Sources
Altimari, Daniela. "Close Race In 2nd District." Hartford Courant 20 October, 2006.
"Lieberman Extends Lead To 17 Points Over Lamont." Associated Press 20 October, 2006.
23 comments:
So long as the polls refuse to consider third party choices, they present a fraudulent picture of the elections to voters.
Polling is harmful to democratic competition. We know what happens when someone's poll numbers spiral before election day. Or look at how Rell's huge lead will discourage voter turnout. Can we consider this a positive consequence of polling.
And Schwartz's numbers often favor Lieberman. Polls are not to be trusted.
At QU Law, I have recently argued in the QU Legal Times that the QUPI must shift its focus. An excerpt from the article:
What we now see as ubiquitous numbers games that dominate modern elections began as private data collection measures for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. According to some researchers, polling helped free Roosevelt’s presidency from certain political pressures.
Polls offer little substantive civic data that helps us manage our democracy, nor do polls reveal much about the true nature of public debate.
Instead of just gauging horse race numbers and setting expectations for “electability,” what if polls served different functions in our elections? Exit polling has proved valuable in verifying the results of voting machines, so why doesn't QUPI shift its focus and begin conducting extensive exit polling?
Or what if we shifted question sets to explore what people thought about specifics instead of dealing in ambiguities.
QUPI could compare policy proposals for voters and then ask questions. Or QUPI could take one concrete proposal, like the Thornton’s idea for free college tuition, or Jodi Rell’s latest Smarth Growth initiative, or John DeStefano’s vision for lowering property taxes, and ask voters what they think.
Current question sets promote superficial analysis of politics. When QUPI asks “Is your opinion of John DeStefano favorable, unfavorable, mixed, or haven't you heard enough about him?” and 32 percent of respondents say that they haven’t heard enough to about the man who has been Mayor of one of Connecticut’s largest cities for more than a decade, we have evidence that our system of educating voters is broken.
This poll, usually accurate, shows Lieberman with a 17% lead. That's huge. What's going on here?
Never trust a QU poll
This was NOT taken after the debate. It was taken 100% before the debate.
The Quinnipiac polls always seem to sugarcoat Lieberman's numbers. There's some kind of fixed result there - no doubt.
The poll was taken 10/17-10/19-- after the first debate on 10/16.
DeSTEFA-NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO way he'll EVER be Governor!!!
On October 16th CGG in a post said the following: "If Alan Schlesinger's poll numbers go up they're coming right out of Joe Lieberman's pocket."
I challenged that statement as Anon. 10:56 with the following:
"CGG - Can you please explain why you believe that any votes AS picks up will come straight from JL?
More importantly, look at the crosstabs of the most recent polls and you will find that your candidate NL is getting a larger than expected support from Republicans. Based on my experience and talking to people around the state, I do not see NL maintaining that much support from Republicans. I think that there is more evidence to suggest that the Rs who are now saying that they will support NL are more likely to not vote for him. At the same time, I think that JL support among Rs will remain strong.
Bottom line is this: AS does not get more than 10%. If he is at 4% now, that is an increase of 6% (obviously). I think that 6% will come from NL as much as it will from JL.
I will examine crosstabs with anyone here to justify my argument. It would have been nice to see you offer some evidence to support your assumption rather than just repeat the party line."
Now that we have the new Q poll, let's take a look, shall we.
On September 28, Republicans suppored Lieberman 69%, Lamont 15% and Schlesinger 12%.
In this latest poll on October 20 Republicans supported Lieberman 70%, Lamont 9% and Schlesinger 12%.
This is precisely what I said would happen. AS went up 6 pts. among Rs and NL went down 6 pts. while JL stayed they same.
As I am a Republican I think that I have a better understanding of what R voters will do than CGG.
If Schlesinger surges to 20 pts or more, then yes he will be taking more votes from JL than NL because JL has more R votes to lose. But, and I have been saying this for months, AS will NOT get more than 10% of the vote.
One more fact, 96% of the people who watched the debate said that their opinion on who they were voting for did not change. Given that fact (plus no money) there is no way AS can surge.
This poll is bad news for Lamont and he knows it.
I find this all EXTREMELY hard to believe. Every where I turn I hear something positive about Alan Schlesinger. I don't think I've talked to ONE person who is still supporting Joe Lieberman after the first and even the second debate. Ned Lamont's liberals are mostly sticking by him, but Alan Schlesinger is getting a lot more votes than you all are expecting.
How about we stop listening to the Quinnipiac poll and try a more trustworthy and known poll...say, the rasmussen??
I mean come ON people. Think for once. And by the way - The polling was done BEFORE the debate.
Rell has support of 32% of Democrats. Lieberman has maintained support of 35% of Democrats. They both seem likely to win. Democrats haven't won the Governor's office since 1986 (20 years). The left wing of the Democratic Party brings down every candidate in any contested general election. This will explain Courtney's loss and maybe others this year as well.
This Q poll is highly dubious; Zogby's solitary polling has had the best track record with this race, and according to their numbers, Lieberman and Lamont are as of today within the margin of error, making the race a dead heat: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-elections06.html
And when Zogby shows it a wide margin the tune will change again. Face it, Lieberman has won.
The q-poll was accurate for the primary, not the zogby.
Where's Rubenstein? He was always fun to read. I especially like his take on how Lamont would win walking away in a general...good one Brucie.
DeStefano shines again in an interview in today's Darien News Review if anyone has the intellectual curiosity to do more than banter back and forth.
Question:
How can you tell when someone has had too much Kool Aid?
Answer:
When they post that "DeStefano shines again..."
LMAO
It's hard to gauge turn-out, and this race has some unusual dynamics. (Lieberman's ballot position, at the bottom of the heap, and his reliance on Republican voters who have never voted for him before.)
I sure haven't encountered any Lamont defectors. I have heard a lot of buzz about Schlesinger.
So while I'm not happy, I'm going to avoid sky is falling talk for another week or two.
The Q-poll was the least accurate during the Primary.
Doug Schwartz said "Sen. Lieberman can not be beat in a primary and has nothing to worry about" and has given Joe Lieberman whatever numbers he's ask for since he made that statement.
Schwartz gave Lamont a 13 point lead trying to suppress Lamont voters from bothering to vote and these numbers play the voter suppression game by trying to say Lamont can't win.
The Q will be laughed out of existence after Nov 7th
can we trade jodi rell for Deval Patrick? How is it a bonehead governor like Jodi Rell is going to get re-elected again. This is like when the Sopranos choose mob bosses. People have got to wake up!
I don;t recall Q being held in such poor esteem when Lamont was up 14 before the primary...then they were great.
Face it , Ned's spent $4M since the primary and lost ground.
BTW, at the rate Rell is losing support JDS will be within the MOE by MLK day
I think anon8:11 should go read Lamonts official blog from the day the Q-poll released the numbers that had Lamont up by 13.
Lamonts people new full well they were not up by 13 and in fact there internals had Lamont down by a few when that Q-poll was released.
well, perhaps the point is that since under no circumstances has Lamont ever decisively led among Democrats (you guys are admitting it by dissing the old Q poll) how can he win a general election barring the transformation of Alan Gold into Ronald Reagan?
Lamont's only real appeal was to young, idealistic liberals, mostly urban, who don't know much of the real world or world history, and don't figure that things in far-off lands are very important.
Fortunately, if the weather is really bad, they'll stay home and do their hair rather than brave the elements to vote.
Even though I'm an atheist ultra-conservative, I'd rather see Lieberman -- a man with actual principles and beliefs -- in Congress than some limousine liberal who takes the Neville Chamberlain approach to world affairs.
Lieberman takes it by 18 points, much more if the weather really sucks.
Post a Comment