| (FYI, here is Bob Alexander’s campaign website – Matt)With Obama surging, McCain AWOL, and the Republican brand so badly damaged it brings “Watergate” to mind, various polls suggest we may see the end of Knollenberg and Walberg. But what are the prospects for flipping a third Congressional seat? There aren’t any obvious prospects – the rest of the Republican incumbents seem well dug in, and are facing unknown and unfinanced Democratic opponents.Still, I started thinking about conducting a micro-poll in CD8, just to confirm the conventional wisdom that Mike Rogers will clobber Bob Alexander, like he did four years ago, when Bob ended up well below 40%. Two years ago, Marcinkowski spend a substantial amoung of money – in a very Democratic year – and didn’t do much better. I couldn’t find a client to pay the measly $400 for one of my cheapie polls, so I ate the cost. Surprise, surprise! |
| Grebner :: Dem Tide Is So Strong, It May Rock Mike Rogers |
| I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect Bob to actually win, but he’s certainly doing a lot better than I expected. I’ve explained my use of robo-dialled polls previously, but the basic idea is to assume each candidate will receive almost all the votes of people who identify with their party, and almost none of the votes of people who identify with the opponent’s party. By limiting our research to people who appear to be ticket-splitters, and asking only a single question (the horse-race) it’s possible to get a rough assessment for just a few hundred dollars. In 2006, the Democratic candidates for minor statewide offices surged to 48.6% of the two-party vote in CD8. With the Republicans stumbling, and with a sharply larger turnout this year, I guess the Democratic baseline will rise to a 49% share of the 80% of all voters who identify with either party. The 20% of the voters who show no real loyalty to either party are the battleground, and Alexander would need to beat Rogers roughly 55% to 45% among this group to make up the baseline deficit. That would be a tall order for even a well-financed challenger, against an entrenched incumbent who isn’t beset by scandal.Well, I ran my little robo-poll, and Bob got 47% of the responses among the ticket-splitters. If you put it together with the slight Republican advantage among baseline voters, it suggests Bob is only about four points behind Rogers. There’s a fairly large margin of error, since I only got 190 completes, but it’s still an amazingly weak performance by a well-known incumbent facing a weakly financed challenger. If the election were held today, at the worst Bob would lose by eight percentage points.Because he hasn’t had the money for heavy mail or television, there must be a huge number of voters who don’t feel they could vote for Bob – simply because they have no idea who he is. A few hundred thousand dollars might very well pick up the 10,000 votes Bob needs to flip – those voters wouldn’t demand very much to convince them to vote against Rogers, whom they already know quite well. That is, they seem to be resisting voting for Rogers, but they aren’t familiar with the alternative.The situation from Rogers’ perspective is quite different; each additional $100,000 wouldn’t be likely to pick up many votes, since the voters who are up for grabs have already failed to be impressed by all the free and paid media he’s racked up over the past eight years.Here are the highlights of my little poll: ========================= CANDIDATE responses percent Alexander 89 47% Rogers 101 53% (Remember – these need to be considered alongside the baseline vote.) ============================Group Count Alexander%R-Leaning 81 37%Independent 50 41%D-Leaning 63 64%(Solid D or R were excluded from the poll.) =============================Area Count Alexander%Clinton/Ingham 80 57%Shiawassee/Oakland/Livingston 110 39%(Bob is slightly stronger near where he lives.) =============================The main reason I’m posting this is to encourage the Powers That Be (which don’t talk to me) to think about freeing up a little bit of money for a “legitimate” poll, which might then convince them to divert some real money to Bob. I’m not claiming that Bob “will” win, nor that that a few hundred thousand dollars would necessarily turn the tide. But I am predicting that even without any help, Bob is going to come a lot closer than most people – including me – expected. And – with a little help – he just might win. |