Sound Politics: Last Poll in the Gov's Race

November 03, 2008

Last Poll in the Gov's Race

From Strategic Vision: Gregoire 50% v. Rossi 48%. The same survey has Obama over McCain, 55% - 40%.

In 2004, the last Strategic Vision poll had Gregoire +3% (with a lot of undecideds). We know how that one turned out.

UPDATE: make that almost last. SurveyUSA shows Gregoire +6%.

In 2004, the same firm's last poll also fluctuate wildly, with a last minute swing from +2% Gregoire to +6% for Rossi.

I'd be surprised if either side wins by anything over +3%. Is this latest an outlier or catching some sort of late break? We find out tomorrow...or days later.

UPDATE II: good catch by Glenno in the comments. The swing in SurveyUSA's poll looks heavily driven by only one demographic group. Would a late-breaking trend like that occur in silo? Probably not. Whoever wins, that sort of isolated electoral shift, as SurveyUSA claims, is exceptionally rare.

Posted by Eric Earling at November 03, 2008 07:06 PM | Email This

Comments

1. If you compare the last two polls form Survey USA (Oct 26-27th & 30th - Nov 2) the biggest thing that jumps out at you is the western WA female vote of 18 to 34. This is what has made the swing in the latest Survey USA poll. This one group comprises a 9% swing towards Gregoire.

All the other age groups along with M/F have only at the most a 3% swing change for Rossi or Gregoire.

Why the large change in F 18 to 34 group?

Posted by: Glenno on November 3, 2008 07:51 PM

2. Perhaps the ad saying that Dino will do away with abortion-since when does the gov have the power to change Roe v Wade? Agh

Posted by: Alcat on November 3, 2008 08:20 PM

3. Not only is this survey skewed towards women it seems to have totally ignored Hispanics and Blacks yet they were able to find a signigicant number of Asians to poll.

Posted by: Cindy on November 3, 2008 09:00 PM

4. We're there a lot of ads from Gregoire and her assorted allies on abortion in the last few days?

I haven't watched much TV the last few days.

I agree with Glenno's observation, but Surveyusa isn't a bad polling outfit.

Maybe we'll know tomorrow. If not then, by the end of the week.

Posted by: b2 on November 3, 2008 09:32 PM

5. After reviewing Surveying USA polls that were done over last 6 months one "consistent" key element kept Rossi in the race.

This element will win or lose it for Rossi.

Eastern WA!

If all the Counties in Eastern WA turn out an Avg. of 87% and KC turns out 85% or less Rossi WINS for Sure.

I believe that Rossi will be in the lead by the end of Tuesday night vote counting. The question is how much? My guess is in 60k to 90k. I believe that it will have to be this amount to sustain King Co. and it slow counting process over the next week(s)...

Posted by: Glenno on November 3, 2008 09:55 PM

6. If Republicans are this far in the minority, well that's something that will change in 2-4 years.

If the pollsters are this much in the tank (with the media) for democrats, good luck earning back any credibility.

Posted by: Andy on November 3, 2008 09:58 PM

7. There were several big demographic swings in the SurveyUSA internals that should make anybody at least doubt its reliability. The biggest by far for me was when they asked this sample who they voted for in 2004, and the result pretty much guarantees that this one is an outlier:

Gregoire 48
Rossi 37
Did Note Vote 9
Unsure 4
Other 2
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=6ba4ffa2-f485-4d03-9a17-48ee3c22c933

When you think about it, one could actually argue that while this poll is a likely outlier, it does show some good swing towards Rossi from this particular sample if he's scoring 46% out of a group where only 37% voted for him last time.

Posted by: TMW on November 4, 2008 09:25 AM

8. "If republicans are this far in the minority, well that's something that will change in 2-4 years" -Andy

Don't count on it Andy, I know several R's that moved out-of-state after the last crooked election. If The Queen serves 4 more years, alot of us can't afford to stay in Washington - over 1/2 of our King County neighborhood is seriously considering leaving the state because we can't afford to live here anymore. In 2 to 4 years King County could be a Democratic ghost town...with extremely high taxes.

We love living here, but I refuse to be slave labor for the government. If Obama wins, Alaska is looking good...fabulous governor looking out for her citizens.

Posted by: Denni on November 4, 2008 11:04 AM