There's another poll that's got people buzzing, and it comes from CD04, home of dinosaur and former DINO-turned-Republican Ralph Hall. The particulars are here, which I'll summarize:
(Registered voters, sample size = 403)
If the election were held today, for whom would you vote?Ralph Hall - 49%
Glenn Melancon - 39%
Other - 2%
None/Undecided - 10%(Self-reported likely voters, sample size = 354)
Ralph Hall - 48%
Glenn Melancon - 41%
Other - 1%
None/Undecided - 10%
Needless to say, this is a stunning result. There are several things that need to be discussed.
- It's not directly noted in the survey results, but according to the pollsters (both of whom I've spoken to via email and/or phone), the partisan mix was 40% Republican, 36% Democrat, and 18% Independent, 6% other/no answer. I told them that I thought this was too few Republicans for this district. This was the data they got, they told me. They also said they seemed to reach more older respondents, who might be disproportionately from the old school Southern Democrat tradition, as Hall himself was until 2003.
If you go through Table 3 and multiply the number of respondents for each candidate by the percentage of that candidate's vote based on party identity, you get 150 Dems, 182 Republicans, and the rest independent/no answer. That's a 55/45 split of Rs to Ds, which again seems a little low on the Rs to me, but it's what they got. Hall did draw slightly more support among self-identified Democrats than Melancon did among Republicans, but those numbers are relatively tiny to be predictive.
- The phone call started with a recording announcing that this was a survey and asking the recipient to press 1 to continue. Those who chose not to continue had the call ended. It's possible that Republican voters were less interested in participating in a poll, which in turn may be an indicator that they're less interested in voting this year. That could bias the result, or it could be some solid evidence that the disparity in voter intensity we've seen in poll after poll at the national level holds true for Texas as well.
If this is evidence that Democrats are about to turn out at higher levels than usual, while Republicans will turn out at lower levels, then this is very bad news for Rick Perry and the like. CD04 is solid Republican turf - President Bush got 70% of the vote in 2004. If they're staying home, look out. This is of course far from conclusive, but it's another straw in the wind.
- One point that might bias the result a little towards Hall comes from the order of the questions asked (see page four). Just before the "who will you vote for" question is a question asking if the respondent knew who their representative was. Normally, following such a question with a "who will you vote for" question tends to favor the person they just named. Interestingly, Hall did measurably worse among those who knew he was their rep (51/49) than among those who did not (59/41). Perhaps this is a measure of anti-incumbent sentiment, or perhaps more Democrats knew who Hall was.
As I suggested with the Ankrum poll, I believe that anti-incumbent sentiment is at play here as well. I am told that Melancon has a strong campaign sign presence, so maybe by now his name recognition is reasonable, but I still think this is as much about incumbents as anything. I think the higher percentage of Melancon voters among those who knew who Ralph Hall was supports this hypothesis.
- On the other hand, CD04 is one of many places this year where the Democrats are running a much more vigorous campaign than they did in 2004. After that election was over, Ralph Hall held a fundraiser to help retire the debt of his opponent, Jim Nickerson. That's one of the nicer ways in which Hall is a throwback, but how tough a campaign would you be waging if you knew that the guy you were running against would be picking up the tab afterwards? Glenn Melancon, who's young, dynamic, and forward thinking, provides a very sharp contrast to Hall. It's not at all hard to imagine that this has had a positive effect for him.
- One thing that pollster Bigelow told me on the phone that I thought was highly interesting was that a lot of the respondents wanted to talk about Iraq, even though that was not part of the poll. He said that while there were some people who expressed a strong "stay the course" message, by far more people spoke about how bad things were and how they couldn't believe things had gotten. Again, this is in tune with national polls, and again this suggests bad news for incumbents, in particular Republican incumbents.
At the end of the day, I find this result encouraging, even as I'm not sure how much faith to put in it. If I had my way, there'd be five current polls for every contested race so we could get a better feel for what's what. This poll is at least consistent with those in other Texas Congressional districts that have suggested a slackening of Republican support. This one has more slack than those do, but the previous polls are several months old by now, so things may well be worse for the GOP. All I can say is we'll see what happens.
Finally, I did an interview with Melancon while we were at the Dem convention in Fort Worth in June. The Morning News, who declined to endorse anyone in CD04, might not like some of his positions, but I liked what he had to say just fine. Listen and judge for yourself. Thanks to TPM Election Central for the heads up.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on October 26, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack