Rep. Quico Canseco has released his own poll in CD23.
New polling data released by Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco’s campaign shows the freshman congressman with a 10-point lead on his Democratic challenger, Pete Gallego. The new poll is radically different from the one released by Gallego’s campaign last month. That poll, conducted by the Democratic-leaning League of Conservation Voters, had Gallego with a five-point lead.
Canseco’s new poll, conducted by On Message, Inc. between Sept. 23 and 25, shows the Republican incumbent with a 47 to 37 percent advantage. Independent polling has been hard to come by in the race for the 23rd congressional district seat.
“All critical indicators of the political environment clearly demonstrate that the 23rd is headed our way from the top of the ticket on down,” said Wes Anderson of On Message, Inc., in a memo to the Canseco campaign.
The Gallego campaign said the Canseco-backed poll has a smaller sample size than polls their campaign conducted.
“The Canseco poll defies credibility and logic,” said Gallego campaign spokeswoman Rebecca Acuna. “The fact that they’re just now releasing a poll taken a week and half ago is a telling sign of trouble for their campaign.”
Acuna also said the poll likely under-samples the Hispanic vote.
As with the Gallego poll, I have no further information than this, so I cannot analyze it in any depth. My gut feeling is that a ten-point spread is unlikely in this swing district, but more than that I couldn’t say. Since I did mention when I wrote about that Gallego poll that one could draw an inference from the lack of response on Canseco’s part, I am obligated to note that he has now responded. So there you have it.