A war of words erupted recently between Pennsylvania Senate Candidate Chuck Pennacchio and three prominent pollsters: Muhlenberg College, Franklin & Marshall’s Keystone Poll, and the Quinnipiac poll. Pennacchio had charged that the polls were deceptively tailored to sway voter opinion in favor of the DSCC annointed candidate Bob Casey Jr. The pollsters in turn responded in a joint statement, branding Pennacchio’s charges “unsubstantiated and reckless.”
Yet the latest Quinnipiac Poll released Thursday April 6th, in particular the press release that accompanied it, would seem to add considerable credibility to Pennacchio’s case, and it would appear to leave the Quinnipiac Poll with some explaining to do.
Alan Sandals
The Quinnipiac Poll press release headline suggests a poll that is chock full of good news for Bob Casey Jr.: Casey Leads Santorum By 11% In Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Few Dems Would Drop Casey Because He Is Pro-Life.
Ignoring the Casey v Santorum vote totals for the moment, the poll reveals Pennsylvania voter sentiment on a number of items that might sway the election away from Rick Santorum, given his close ties to the Bush administration and his support for the Iraq war:
- 62% of Pennsylvanians polled disapprove of the way in which in which George W. Bush is handling the war in Iraq.
- 55% think going to war in Iraq was the “wrong thing.”
- 59% think we should decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, or remove them entirely.
- 51% of Pennsylvanians generally favor abortion rights vs. 41% who generally oppose abortion rights.
- Only 35% approve of the job President Bush is doing as President.
- Only 44% approve of the job Rick Santorum is doing as Senator.
- Only 43% think Rick Santorum deserves re-election.
The Quinnipiac Poll press release suggests modest slippage for Casey:
Pennsylvania incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum has inched up slightly against Democratic State Treasurer Robert Casey Jr. and now trails the challenger 48 – 37 percent in his reelection battle, with 12 percent undecided…
This compares to a 51 – 36 percent Casey lead in a February 13 poll…
“Sen. Rick Santorum has narrowed the gap a little…” said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
One might argue whether slipping from a 15-point lead in February 2006 to an 11-point lead in late March/early April 2006 (-27%) is really merely “a little” narrowing of the gap between the two candidates. But that characterization clearly could not have been applied if the press release had highlighted the true trend rather than simply comparing the new poll only with the one that preceded it. Here, alas, is the trend in the last four polls:
| Quinnipiac Poll | Casey | Santorum | Casey’s Edge |
| Oct. 2005 | 52% | 34% | +18 points |
| Dec. 2005 | 50 | 38 | +12 points |
| Feb. 2006 | 51 | 36 | +15 points |
| Apr. 2006 | 48 | 37 | +11 points |
Casey’s margin of victory over Santorum has decreased By 7-points, or 39% from October 2005 to April 2006. That kind of precipitous downtrend does not inspire confidence that Casey’s lead over Santorum will hold into the fall if he is the Democratic nominee, and it makes one wonder if Quinnipiac is deliberately attempting to minimize the seriousness of Casey’s slippage in the polls by ignoring the full trend and instead referring only to the February and April 2006 surveys. That press release headline: Casey Leads Santorum By 11% In Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Few Dems Would Drop Casey Because He Is Pro-Life also seems rather incomplete. One would think the sharp Casey decline versus Santorum might have also found its way into that poll press release. Back in October 2005 when Casey opened up his short-lived 18-point advantage over Santorum, the Quinnipiac press release headline blared: “Casey Surges As Santorum Slides In PA Senate Race.” The same headline with the names reversed might well have applied to this latest poll.
CASEY IS VIEWED LESS AND LESS FAVORABLY BY PENNSYLVANIA VOTERS:
Question: Is your opinion of State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr. favorable, unfavorable, mixed, or haven’t you heard enough about him?
| Have favorable opinion of: | Oct. 2005 | Dec. 2005 | Feb. 2006 | Apr. 2006 |
| Bob Casey Jr. | 38% | 40% | 34% | 33% |
| Rick Santorum | 33 | 35 | 34 | 32 |
Since October Casey’s favorable rating has dropped by 5-points or -13% while Santorum’s have remained almost unchanged. Casey maintained a 5-point advantage in favorability ratings over Santorum back in October 2005. Now he has a statistically meaningless 1-point advantage.
CASEY REMAINS LARGELY A MYSTERY TO PENNSYLVANIA VOTERS:
When voters are asked their opinion of Bob Casey, Jr. a surprisingly large percentage, far larger than Santorum, do not know enough about him to express an opinion:
| Don’t know enough about: | Oct. 2005 | Dec. 2005 | Feb. 2006 | Apr. 2006 |
| Rick Santorum | 18% | 14% | 17% | 19% |
| Bob Casey Jr. | 33 | 34 | 38 | 40 |
Thus fully 40% of voters questioned by Quinnipiac know too little about Casey to be able to express an opinion about him, and that number has increased by 7-points or + 21% since October. 2005. Another 10% have an unfavorable opinion of Casey and 16% have a mixed opinion of him. Adding up the numbers, Only 33% say they have a favorable opinion of Casey versus 66% who either don’t know enough about him, have an unfavorable opinion of him, or have a mixed opinion of him, hardly numbers that the Casey campaign can take comfort in. Given that a majority of Pennsylvanians differ with Casey on the war in Iraq (Casey opposes removing troops or setting a timetable for withdrawal), on abortion rights, on Congressional intervention in the Schaivo case (a question Quinnipiac polled about in April 2005: “Casey Widens Lead In Pennsylvania Senate Race, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Schiavo, Social Security Take Toll On Santorum,” a week before Casey also endorsed Congressional intervention in the Schiavo case), and quite likely on other issues not taken up by Quinnipiac like the Patriot Act, gun control, warrantless NSA wiretaps, stem cell research, the death penalty, et al, it would take a true leap of faith to conclude that Casey’s narrowing lead over Santorum will continue to hold as voters learn more about where Casey stands on the issues. Quinnipiac asked only about one issue, abortion, and the responses reveal that Casey’s views on that subject (he favors overturning Roe v Wade) are still a mystery to the vast majority of Pennsylvania voters:
Question: On the issue of abortion, do you happen to know whether Bob Casey Jr. is pro-life or pro-choice?
| ”Pro-Life” | ”Pro-Choice” | Don’t Know |
| 23% | 8% | 69% |
That’s right, only 23% of Pennsylvania voters surveyed know that Casey is anti-choice.
QUINNIPIAC SPINS THE ABORTION QUESTION:
But does it matter? Quinnipiac suggests that it does not. The press release states:
“Only 15 percent of voters say they would vote against a candidate based only on his position on abortion.”
Oh really???
Quinnipiac bases that statement on a rather bizarre question it has not asked in previous polls, one that almost seems designed to produce this low response while completely ignoring responses to another question in the same poll and other questions in previous polls that suggest a very different conclusion:
If a political candidate were to take a stand on abortion that was different from your own, would you vote against that candidate on the basis of that issue alone, or would you consider other things before deciding who to vote for?
In response to that question 15% of the respondents said that they would “vote against” the candidate they disagreed with about abortion while 82% said they would “consider other things before they dedided who to vote for.” That is a far cry from suggesting, as the Quinnipiac press release seems to do, that only 15% would vote against a candidate based on whether they disagreed only on the one issue of abortion.
The press release makes no mention of another question in this same poll that produced a far more significant and very different response. As background, The poll found that more than 90% of those polled by Quinnipiac did not know enough about the other Democratic Senate candidates, Chuck Pennacchio and Alan Sandals, to have an opinion about them, and it correctly noted that “Casey overwhelms two largely unknown candidates in the Democratic primary.”
Quinnipiac returned to the abortion question, asking respondents who had earlier indicated a preference for “pro-life” Casey if they would consider changing their vote to “pro-choice” Pennacchio or Sandals.
In answer to this question 28% said they would be “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to change their vote in the primary. Only 34% said they would be “not likely at all” to change their vote in the primary.
This would seem a rather astonishing shift — based solely on the abortion issue — toward two candidates who are relatively unknown to over 90% of Pennsylvania voters. Why does Quinnipiac ignore these findings in its press release and instead suggest in the headline and again in the text that “Few Dems Would Drop Casey Because He Is Pro-Life”?
It is worth noting at this point that the Quinnipiac finding that Casey would get 63% of the vote in the May 16, 2006 primary versus a combined 9% for Pennacchio and Sandals is misleading. The poll suggests that a large percentage of Casey voters might change their minds based on the abortion issue (and perhaps other issue Quinnipiac did not ask about), and 25% remain undecided. That primary could become competitive in a hurry if the voters discover the differences between Casey and his two opponents. The current numbers would seem more a reflection of the failure of the media than a gage of voter sentiment.
Clearly, the Quinnipiac press release notwithstanding, Casey’s opposition to abortion rights does matter and will have a significant influence on how people vote, especially as they learn more about where Casey stands on this issue and where his two opponents in the primary stand on the issue.
In December 2005 Quinnipiac asked Casey voters:
If I told you that Bob Casey Jr. and Rick Santorum both oppose legalized abortion, what would you do – Would you still vote for Bob Casey Jr, would you vote for Rick Santorum, or would you not vote at all?
In response to that question 29% of Casey voters who said they who were pro-choice indicated that they would now either vote for Santorum, would not vote at all, or would vote for someone else rather than vote for Casey.
And in April 2005 Quinnipiac respondents were asked:
As you may know both Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr. are pro-life on the issue of abortion. If there were an independent candidate on the ballot who was pro-choice on the issue of abortion, how likely would you be to vote for that pro-choice candidate instead of (Casey/Santorum) — very likely, somewhatlikely, not very likely or not likely at all?
In response to that question 46% of respondents who had originally said they planned to vote for Casey changed their minds and indicated that they would vote for the “pro-choice” candidate.
WHY IS QUINNIPIAC SUGGESTING THAT THE ABORTION ISSUE WILL HAVE LITTLE BEARING ON HOW PENNSYLVANIANS WILL VOTE WHEN ALL OF THEIR POLLING DATA CLEARLY SUGGESTS THAT THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE?
NEW RASMUSSEN POLL FURTHER FANS THE FLAMES:
The new Rasmussen poll reveals a similar downward spiral for Casey to the one Quinnipiac failed to report in its press release:
| Rasmussen Poll | Casey | Santorum | Casey’s Edge |
| Nov. 2005 | 54% | 34% | + 20 points |
| Jan. 2006 | 53 | 38 | +15 points |
| Feb. 2006 | 52 | 36 | +16 points |
| Mar. 2006 | 48 | 38 | +10 points |
| Apr. 2006 | 50 | 41 | +9 points |
According to Rasmussen, Casey’s once 20-point lead against Santorum has been halved to 10-points. Unlike Quinnipiac, Rasmussen comments honestly upon the trend:
“The latest Rasmussen Reports election poll in the Keystone State shows Democrat Bob Casey leading Santorum 50% to 41%. That’s the first time in all six polls we’ve conducted on this race that Casey’s lead has slipped to single digits. It’s also the first time Santorum has moved above the 40% mark since last July.”
That’s not all. Rasmussen also asked about the abortion issue after the initial round of questions:
“After asking survey respondents who they would vote for, we informed them that the National Organization for Women (NOW) is concerned about Casey on the abortion issue and is endorsing another candidate in the primary. We then asked a second time about how each respondent would vote.”
The resulting shift is astonishing:
| NOW Doubts about Casey revealed to respondents | Casey | Santorum |
| Before | 50% | 41% |
| After | 41 | 46 |
For the first time, Santorum actually beats Casey in the Fall election. Once voters know about how Casey has earned the disfavor of NOW over his stance on choice, his vote total plummets by -18% while Santorum’s increases by + 12%.
Rasmussen states what Quinnipiac seems to want to avoid stating:
“The change was dramatic enough that, having heard the new information, voters favored Santorum by a five-point margin (46% to 41%). This suggests a lack of voter knowledge about Casey that could make the race more competitive than it seems at this time.”
Other polls have also suggested that Casey’s lead is disintegrating:
- The Keystone poll had Casey leading Santorum by 19-points last June, by 14-points in November, and by only 11 points in February. That trend represents a 42% backslide for Casey.
- The Zogby Poll had Casey 10-points ahead of Santorum last October, but only 8-points ahead of him in March. That is a 20% backslide.
And Finally, returning to the Quinnipiac poll, that poll suggests that Chuck Pennacchio and Alan Sandals represent far more formidable competition for Rick Santorum than either the media or the pollsters seem willing to admit.
The Quinnipiac poll indicates that if the election were held today Alan Sandals would garner 32% of the vote against Santorum and would lose the election by only 13-points, this despite the fact that 92% of respondents don’t know enough about Sandals to have an opinion about him.
The Quinnipiac poll indicates that if the election were held today Chuck Pennacchio would garner 30% of the vote against Santorum and would lose the election by only 15-points, this despite the fact that 94% of respondents don’t know enough about Pennacchio to have an opinion about him.
If Sandals and Pennacchio can get over 30% of the vote against Santorum with less than 10% of the voters knowing much about them, imagine how they’d do if the voters learned more about them, especially in view of the fact that both differ much more significantly with Santorum on major issues than Casey does.
The true message revealed by these polls is that it is time for the media to inform, and it is time for the pollsters to stop spinning.