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* Research 2000 is a decent polling outfit, but because the Democratic-biased Daily Kos site has commissioned polls from the firm, its surveys are getting short shrift. I wouldn’t be too sure about the detractors’ arguments. The polls look pretty legit to me, although there is room for argument about their “likely voter” screens. Nobody really knows yet who is going to vote and in what numbers.
Research 2000’s latest DK poll is of the Mark Kirk/Dan Seals congressional race. The methodology…
A total of 400 likely voters in the Tenth Congressional District were interviewed by telephone between September 30 and October 1, 2008.
Those interviewed were selected by the random variation of the last four digits of telephone numbers. A cross-section of exchanges was utilized in order to ensure an accurate reflection of the district. Quotas were assigned to reflect the voter registration of distribution by district.
The margin for error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than plus or minus 5% percentage points.
That’s pretty standard stuff and the usual universe for congressional polling.
* And here’s the matchup, with Kirk’s September polling (just 300 respondents) in parentheses…
Kirk 44 (51)
Seals 38 (29)
* The head-to-head toplines….
* Kos’ conclusion…
To win, Seals must further erode Kirk’s support among Independents and even Democrats (currently at 12 percent), while getting his name ID up with his district’s electorate (29 percent don’t know him, including 32 percent of Independents).
* Meanwhile, Republican congressional candidate Aaron Schock appears to be back in the good graces of the Peoria paper. Check out this lede…
Aaron Schock is young, smart, handsome, rich and lucky.
The columnist goes on to show how Schock profited from flipping properties to public entitites and prominent local institutions like Bradley University. But, in the end, Schock gets a pass.
* Related…
* Dirty money in the 18th District? Not by Illinois standards
* Ozinga, Halvorson TV ads put to the truth test
* Kirk, Seals spar on key energy solutions
* Editorial: Re-elect Kirk
* Democrats look to hold on to Hastert’s old seat in D.C.
* Oberweis Versus Foster Debate Synopsis
* Bitterness still around but celebrities AWOL in 6th District brawl
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 10:10 am
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With how much Seals closed last time around in the last 4 weeks, Kirk had better be very worried. He looked nervous on Carol Marin’s show yesterday.
Comment by George H.W. Bush Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 10:39 am
I trust the Boy Wonder wasn’t flipping properties to interests that had business before the school board or GA when he served.
Comment by wordslinger Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 10:49 am
I’ve worked with Kirk’s pollster in other states, he’s usually a bit optimistic for the GOP. If it was as close as the Kos poll suggests then Seals would have released his polling to show people his progress. Seals has to cross a threshold with independents he hasn’t seemed to be able to cross yet and it will be interesting to see if he can do it.
Comment by shore Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 10:51 am
Terry Bibo Baker wasn’t being complimentary by calling Aaron Schock “lucky” and by concluding he would need more than luck to serve in Congress.
I give her props for detailing in print how the guy got so rich at such an early age. Read between the lines, and one might conclude he got rich because of connections to a powerful institutions and by doing work for contributors.
Comment by Billy Dennis Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 10:56 am
Seals seems to be making little effort to appeal to independents and prefers to toe the party line. The 10th is a little too independent to tolerate that attitudes.
Of those independents I run across (and try to bring over to the Republican side) Kirk usually is spoken of pretty favorably for not blindly voting the party line. The 45% of independents who support Kirk according to the Kos poll seems to confirm my conclusions.
What makes this race interesting is the fact that GOP support in the 10th seems very strong for Kirk this time around. Two years ago some arch-conservative GOP’ers couldn’t stand to bring themselves to vote for Kirk. This time, only a tiny number of them are still talking like that.
Comment by Louis G. Atsaves Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 11:15 am
Bibo is pretty good at the bait and switch. Class baiting that is. It’s puzzeling that Schock, who has drive, smarts and talent gets criticized for that. Typical I suppose.
Comment by RobRoy Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 11:38 am
Rep. Kirk usually votes the party line, and the party is the democratic party. His latest rating from Gun Owners of America is 0%, and his latest rating from Planned Parenthood is 100%. He voted against an amendment that would have banned gay marriage. He says that he opposes earmarks, but he ensured that the federal government spent money, in his district, for Metra, Headstart, HUD, and local police depts. In May 2007, when 11 republican congressmen went to the White House and told President Bush that they opposed the Iraq surge, Kirk was their leader.
Comment by ConservativeVeteran Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 11:42 am
The poll is correctly pointing out that if the election was held today, Kirk would win again.
Comment by VanillaMan Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 12:30 pm
Vman - And I don’t think there is much Seals can do in 30 days against a Kirk campaign that is working much harder this time around.
Comment by 10th Indy Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 12:52 pm
Hmmmm; {the margin for error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than plus or minus 5% percentage points}.
Doesn’t this pollster seem “high” to you? LOL
But let’s see now, where to begin.
Here’s a good place to start:
SAMPLE FIGURES:
Democrats 139 (35%)
Republicans 115 (29%)
Independents/Other 146 (36%)
Of those identifying their party affiliation, the survey sample is 55% Democrat, and 45% Republican; seems fair to me don’t you think?
Then of course there’s this:
18-29 76 (19%)
60+ 72 (18%)
Likely voters?
These groups of course always vote in about equal numbers, and the seniors voting patterns is typically the same as the younger set as well isn’t it?
How about this:
Voters in the Tenth Congressional District were interviewed by telephone between September 30 and October 1, 2008.
Kos
{Given that the poll was conducted during Rosh Hashanah, when many observant (and Democratic-leaning) Jews wouldn’t pick up the phone, the numbers may be even better for Seals.}
Now how does that square with this?
{Those interviewed were selected by the random variation of the last four digits of telephone numbers. A cross-section of exchanges was utilized in order to ensure an accurate reflection of the district. Quotas were assigned to reflect the voter registration of distribution by district.}
If the latter is true; then the survey participants should have included a representative sample Jewish likely voters, regardless of party affiliation.
Statistical analysis indicates however that Jewish voters turn out to vote in far greater numbers than their overall percentage of the voting population across a broader jurisdiction, so if they are indeed gauging likely voters and the sample is supposed to be balanced the percentage of Jewish respondents should already be higher than other sub-groups.
Broader polling data of Jewish voters in other areas however indicates that the more religiously observant Jews are, the more likely they are to vote Republican, so its quite plausible that Jewish Republicans were under-represented to a greater degree than Jewish Democrats.
Let’s look at voting patterns though; and then actual voing, rather than just polling. Jews make up just under 2% of the American population. However, they represent greater than 2% of the American voting population.
Jews are among the oldest of the various ethnic, religious or racial groups in the county, and have a much higher than average turnout rate than the national average percentage of registered voters who actually vote. The Jewish share of the national voting percentage is often 50% higher than their share of the population due to these two factors.
In the 2006 off year election; when Republicans had almost no motivation whatsoever to vote in Illinois, Kirk defeated Seals by about 7%. The overall district is about 20% Jewish however, which is one of the highest percentages for any district in the country.
In Highland Park, a highly concentrated microcosm of the Jewish vote in the district, (total pop. roughly 30,000), the Jewish percentage of the voting population is estimated to be as high as 65—70% of the total vote.
The precinct by precinct votes in Lake County, indicates that Seals, won the Jewish areas in Highland Park, but his margin of victory was by an average of 2 to 1 or 3 to 2 in most of the Jewish majority precincts.
While Jewish voters in general may identify themselves more as Democrats than Republican, Kirk garnered from 1/3 to one half of the Jewish vote in Highland Park, with Republicans perhaps grossly under-represented in 2006.
So that just about “Seals” it; so to speak. I do think the under-pinnings of the polling data look shaky, but I also think that it may accurately reflect that Seals will not win.
Comment by Official Scorer Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 12:54 pm
Rich- did I get deleted? I thought you would have been interested in the analysis direct from Kirk’s pollster?
Comment by Team America Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 1:45 pm
I saw the analysis first hand, and it’s so over the top and somewhat vile that I didn’t think it worthwhile reprinting here.
Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 1:49 pm
I would think that in this election most voters will be coming out to vote for president, not congress. If the current national swing to Obama holds then Kirk may be in trouble because of younger voters who come out to vote for Obama and stick around to vote the Democratic party line.
Does anyone know what the recent voter registration numbers have been like in the district?
Comment by Oakparker Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 2:01 pm
Well, your blog, Rich, but the Jewish Forward went ahead and printed it.
http://www.forward.com/blogs/campaign-confidential/#story-1
Comment by Team America Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 3:17 pm
I’m not sure who’s in deeper doo-doo in this poll — Kirk for being a full six percentage points below 50, or Seals for still having such poor name recognition after running for this seat for three years.
The Republican “analysis” is a circular path to nothing, in my view. One statistical artifact offsetting another, and a gratuitous jab at DailyKos on the side.
Comment by Angry Chicagoan Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 3:35 pm
What is interesting to me is that I have no background in professional polling; and have no role in the campaign, and wouldn’t know the guy from this polling outfit if he came to my front door, yet I came to generally the same conclusions that they did after just looking quickly at what Rich originally posted here.
I have no idea when they wrote their analysis, but based on the time stamps of my post; and that of the post linked above, I may have concluded my analysis; which seems even a bit more thorough, before they even completed theirs.
If they are billing Kirk’s campaign for their time and effort for refuting the polling data released, maybe I should send them a bill too.
After looking at the link I do agree that they went over the top. Simply refuting Kos’ assertion with regard to timing of the survey and pointing out the bias based on facts seemed sufficient to me. I don’t think there is any need to try to divine an intentional sinister motive to the timing; especially since the web sponsor may have had no control over that aspect of the poll in the first place, and simply grasping at straws to suggest it could be even closer than it appears after reviewing the results themselves.
Comment by Official Scorer Monday, Oct 6, 08 @ 9:50 pm
[…] Update: Rich Miller of the Capitol Fax Blog, perhaps the top non-partisan political analyst in Illinois, writes about the dKos/R2K poll, then in comments adds about the Kirk campaign’s response to it: […]
Pingback by IL-10: Another poll for the Kirk gang to try and discredit | Cross Party Lines Tuesday, Oct 7, 08 @ 11:00 am
There’s another poll out for the IL-10 district by Survey USA. Interestingly, this one has Seals up by 8 over Kirk. Kirk has the same 44% support in both polls, but Seals has gone from 38% to 52%. The only significant difference between the polls (that I can see) is that SurveyUSA did their poll over the weekend, where Research2000 did their poll during the week (and including during Rosh Hashanah).
Daily Kos has a discussion of the SurveyUSA poll here:
http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/1102/50956/148/622258
And here’s a direct link to the poll itself:
http://www.rollcall.com/pdfs/Polls1007.pdf
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Oct 7, 08 @ 11:06 am
Anonymous, try checking today’s post. This one is from yesterday.
Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Oct 7, 08 @ 11:14 am
Has Kirk ever voted against the Republican leadership on a close vote?
John Porter was a legit independent. Kirk is a dishonest party hack trying to sell himself as an independent.
Kirk got a bunch of money from Exelon and penned an op-ed published in the Sun-Times.
Kirk argued that nuclear waste needed to be allowed to be sent to Nevada. This part I don’t especially disagree with.
But it was Kirk’s reasoning that struck me as completely dishonest.
Kirk reasoned that keeping nuclear waste at nuclear plants made it possible for terrorists to steal nuclear waste.
Let’s think this through.
1. We have to protect nuclear plants from physical security threats whether we use them as waste holding facilities or not.
2. I’m not sure stealing nuclear waste in the United States is a very sensible thing for terrorists. If the stuff is valuable I’m sure it’s easy enough to purchase in France or the former Soviet Union.
3. Nuclear waste is far more vulnerable to be stolen from a train or truck in transit to Nevada than it is from a nuclear power plant.
I’ve talked to Kirk about service members on welfare and his arguments on that issue were some combination of misinformed and dishonest.
And when I lobbied on foreign policy issues, I liked dealing with Porter’s people. I thought they were really trying to understand the issues and do the right thing.
With Kirk he’s always taking the position of the GOP House leadership and then trying to make his version of the hard Right position sound moderate.
Remember Kirk talking tough about Iraqis needing to take over Iraq’s security? What did he do about? Nothing.
Kirk talks trash about holding the Bush administration accountable, but he doesn’t follow through.
He’s hanging around until he can get a promotion to a higher office, position in GOP leadership or a really powerful committee assignment.
Until he gets a promotion Kirk’s guiding principle is to build up chips with the GOP bosses and contributors. He’s never going to stick out his neck for his district if it means offending the GOP power brokers.
Comment by Carl Nyberg Tuesday, Oct 7, 08 @ 11:21 am
Carl:
When you worked with Porter’s people, you probably worked with Kirk at some point, considering he was on Porter’s staff — and eventually Chief of Staff.
Comment by Anon Tuesday, Oct 7, 08 @ 8:19 pm