The Annise Parker campaign has released an internal poll (PDF) that shows her in the lead of the Mayoral race.
A recent Lake Research Partners’ survey of likely voters in Houston’s upcoming mayoral contest shows that City Controller Annise Parker continues to hold the lead. Peter Brown, Gene Locke, and Roy Morales trail behind and are still in a race to see who can make the run-off with Parker. Late deciding voters will also make a difference.
Given the projected low turnout, we sampled voters who are the most likely to vote, i.e. those with previous participation in past city elections. Among these likely voters Controller Annise Parker leads the race with 27 percent (18 percent strong). Brown holds second place with 21 percent (12 percent strong). Locke trails with 17 percent (12 percent strong). Morales brings in 11 percent support (8 percent strong). A quarter of voters (24 percent) remains undecided.
According to the footnote, “The survey was conducted among 400 registered voters in Houston with previous vote participation in municipal elections and who are likely to vote this November.” Assuming this means they did a pre-screen to draw their sample from folks with a history of voting in recent city elections, this strikes me as far more sound than the Chron poll. It was also conducted between October 15-18, so it takes into account the recent TV advertising that Brown and Locke have done. It is an internal poll, and we don’t have the crosstabs or exact wording of the questions, so there’s always room to debate the result. But one thing you can be sure of is that the other campaigns have been doing their own polls. If they’re getting significantly different numbers, especially ones that favor their preferred candidate, we’ll be hearing of them.
Charles,
What have you heard about this KHOU poll that is going to coming out this week that was conducted by Bob Stein? From what I hear it has Brown in a significant lead and Parker and Locke tied.
Erik,
First I’ve heard of a new KHOU poll. All I can say is I hope they addressed the “likely voter” question better than Zogby seems to have. It’s certainly possible for multiple polls to get very different results in a race like this, with a nebulous voter universe and many undecideds.
I think all the polls may be proven wrong because at this point it will depend solely on how many turn out to vote and in which “communities” and that will determine who makes a runoff or who is elected mayor in a landslide. The latter still a possibility.
Brown, Locke, and Parker are destroying themselves in the the process of destroying each other. All three have begun to turn off quite a few people. As in no one wants any of them as mayor.
That leaves Roy Morales. And Mickey Mouse. How do you write in a candiate on an e-machine?
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