Imagine you’re taking a survey about soda. First question is “Do you like Pepsi?” #2: “Do you like Coke?” #3: “If you were given a choice between a can of Pepsi or a can of Coke, which soda would you choose?” #4: “Do you generally prefer drinking Pepsi or Coke?” #5 “Which has a prettier can, Pepsi or Coke?” and finally #6: “If you were given a choice between a can of Coke or a can of Diet Rite, which would you choose?”
Now, don’t ya kinda feel like a Coke? Okay, regardless of what kind of cola you drink, whether or not you even like soda (or “pop” as they call it in Pittsburgh), the point is: it was a biased poll. The lesser known, but refreshing Diet Rite didn’t get mentioned until the very last question. If you really wanted to know what cola people prefer you would need to include all colas in an equal number of questions, right?
Problem is, political polls are far too often done the same way. For many months, my candidate for the US Senate, Chuck Pennacchio, was excluded from polls entirely. This despite the fact that Chuck was filed with the FEC and on the campaign trail longer than his main Democratic primary opponent, Bob Casey Jr.. Not to mention that last Spring Barbara Hafer and Joe Hoeffel were included in polls against Santorum, even though they were never even officially in the race.
It wasn’t until this Fall that Chuck Pennacchio, was finally included in a Keystone poll… but only against Casey. I’m too lazy to google it, but I think the numbers were 67% Casey – 5% Pennacchio. Needless to say, I was very discouraged when I saw it. That is, until I realized it was push poll just like the one above; heavily biased in Coke II… I mean, Casey’s favor. Casey’s name is repeated in multiple questions and pounded into a respondent’s head before they poll Casey v. Pennacchio
You can hear Chuck’s comments on these polls in his recent Radio Times interview here.
Another problem with political polls (especially for primaries) is they don’t predict voter turnout. Remember in the 2002 Gubernatorial primary, Casey maintained a huge lead over Rendell in the polls but still lost. Only about 1 in 12 (8% of) registered voters vote in primaries. That means Pennacchio only needs 4% +1 Democrats to vote for him on May 16th to win. If the 5% who said they’d vote for Pennacchio are much more likely to actually show up at the polls than those who said they’d vote for Casey, then Chuck Pennacchio may be much closer to winning the primary than pundits (or the Casey campaign) would have us believe. And that may very likely be the case because, Pennacchio’s campaign has focused mainly on reaching the Democratic “super voters” who are guaranteed to vote on primary day. And if Chuck’s grassroots endorsements are any indication, they like what they hear.
The only scientific poll to include all D&R candidates (and have an equal number of questions for each) found that after respondents learned the candidates’ positions on the issues, Chuck Pennacchio actually had a stronger lead over Santorum than Casey.
So frankly I find the Casey apologists’ “Chuck can’t win” argument a little hard to swallow.
That being said, the more Democrats who hear about Chuck, the better his chances. He’ll be running some radio spots soon. Give them a listen, and contribute to help him become Pennsylvania’s Paul Wellstone.