Parsing the Murphy-Gibson poll
Republican challenger Chris Gibson has clearly surged in the final weeks of the NY-20 race.
But has Democrat Scott Murphy really collapsed to the degree suggested by the latest Siena poll?
After all, a month ago he was leading by a chunky margin.
Turns out it’s a little more complicated than that.
Pollster Steve Greenberg says you can’t draw an exact apples-to-apples comparison between this survey and the last one in September.
The reason is that Siena used a slightly different voter model in this survey, so that it’s difficult to draw a clean contrast.
“I would say it’s a Macintosh to a Red Delicious [comparison],” Greenberg says.
“This poll today has a more stringent ‘likely voter’ sample in it,” he added.
Greenberg is confident that their methodology was able to capture a good snapshot of which voters are more likely to vote, and how that shapes the race now seven days from the November midterms.
If Siena nailed it, then this is a very steep climb for the Murphy campaign, and incredibly reassuring news for Gibson.
Tags: election10
Brian,
Did you happen to ask at what point Siena switched their likely voter methods? There are a lot of Siena polls on a lot of congressional races, it would be interesting to know what method was used when.
I can tell you one thing for a fact, my mother isn’t voting this year. My own mother!
My mother has voted in every single election since I was a child and always stressed how important voting is. She’s been saying for weeks that she wouldn’t vote this year because she is so sick of the news and the political ads and I’ve been telling her how important it is that she does vote. Well, she’s leaving on holiday tomorrow and she hasn’t filed an absentee ballot. Nice going, mom.
My mom is a life-long Republican who watches FoxNews. Good job FoxNews; your work here is done.
Brian Mann,
What is it with your obsession wit polls. They seem wildly inconsistent this year.
The main problem I have with polls is how they can become like political ads for some people. The sheep like to vote according to how they think other people are voting.
We like to think we are “individuals” but want to be in step with the latest fashion, be it clothing, music or politics.
so in other words, this ny 20 poll is more representative, and murphy is gonna need clinton’s help.
BTW….i know you guys are busy raising money, but let’s get into the new ny 23 poll, just out this AM. the duality of the results are fascinating. dede has resurfaced in the form of doug hoffman (almost) in a race that is tooclosetocall.