A new poll, by Majority Watch, shows Democratic challenger Phil Kellam leading Republican incumbent Thelma Drake 51% to 43%, with 6% undecided. The poll was conducted August 27-29 with a sample size of 1,021 and a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.
Here is what the website said about the methodology for this poll:
The Majority Watch polls, a project of RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics, comprise polls conducted using interactive voice recognition (IVR) technology over the telephone. In each of 30 contested U.S. House Congressional districts (CDs), a representative sample of about 1,000 voters were selected from voter lists provided by each state. The interviews were conducted August 27-30, 2006. Results were weighted to represent the likely electorate by demographic factors such as age, sex, race and geographic location in the CD. No more than one time in 20 should chance variations in the sample cause the results to vary by more than 3 percentage points from the answers that would be obtained if all voters in a CD were polled.
Looking at the crosstabs, I can only assume that this was not the 3-question poll I participated in last week 😦 This one has a lot more information in it than I was asked.
The crosstabs also reveal that Kellam may be in even better shape. When looking only at likely voters (821 of the 1,021 people polled), Kellam leads 54% to 41%.
Some other interesting tidbits from the crosstabs:
- Only 22% of Republicans support Kellam. I’m a bit surprised that this number isn’t higher since Kellam has been actively courting such support but it is closer to what I have been hearing from Republicans I know around the area.
- 90% of those who approve of Bush (about 38%) are supporting Drake. 85% of those who disapprove are supporting Kellam. It appears that Kellam is riding the wave of voter discontent with the Bush administration.
- Both women and men favor Kellam over Drake. White voters are evenly split between the two. Nonwhite voters favor Kellam by a huge margin – 59% to 19%, perhaps due to the fact that 60% of the nonwhite voters consider themselves Democrats.
I suspect the Kellam camp will be quite happy with these numbers.
h/t to Rob over at RK
Technorati Tags: Phil Kellam, Thelma Drake
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Not to change the subject too much from the original post, but I think you are right, Viv. Brian Kirwan would definitely have an axe to grind against Bill DeSteph and Insider constantly pokes fun at him. But then again, I think that Brian Kirwan being a Sorenson graduate in Waldo Jaquith’s class would be smarter than whoever this Insider seems to be.
I think we should let Insider stay anonymous and let it go.
Well, I first thought it was Brian because of the reference in this post to him being at the debate. Then I saw another post over at VB Dems (that I can’t find right now) where someone else referred to him as Brian. But I have to agree with you, Eileen. Insider isn’t really smart enough to be Brian (and not because he went to Sorenson, either. I know some pretty dumb folks who went to Sorenson). The comment about oversampling of blacks and young people made me realize that he really doesn’t know how to read a poll, something which Brian would definitely know. And he wrote a post with that mis-information in it and then took it down.
TimeKeeper – I’ve heard Thelma’s inside polls are nowhere near that pretty. In fact, I’ve heard that her polls look similar to this one. And as for this being legit, it was done is association with Cook. Can’t argue that Cook isn’t a legit source of polling.
Dannyboy – I actually heard tonight that Drake’s polls are showing her up by 14.
Personally, I don’t put too much stock in polls (for good reason – if polls voted, I wouldn’t be blogging right now). The only poll that really matters is on election day. Anything else is just a snapshot in time.
But hey – they make for great conversation 😉
Kerwin’s an idiot who can’t send an email without screwing up.
Insider – I noticed that you have not commented on your claim of oversampling, neither here nor anywhere you posted that 😉
The Shad Plank did:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/typepad/dailypress/the_shad_plank/~3/20186846/kellam_up_by_8_.html
Um – no. They made the same idiotic claim of oversampling young voters. They didn’t get off the first page, either. Nor did they bother to check out who the pollsters are (as I posted over there).
And before you say anything about that internal poll the Drake campaign released, the sample size was too small and the margin of error too large in order for it to be credible.
Ah, small sample size, not credible. But undersampling Virginia Beach, credible. I see. . . .
Virginia Beach was not undersampled. Go back and look again. I had this conversation with someone a little bit ago who had thought the same thing until he looked closer at how the areas were allocated.
Look – I know you and Insider are trying hard to discredit this poll. But to do so, first you have to know how to read the thing.
EDIT: And didn’t you have to take a statistical sampling class in college?
yep, made an A+
and, I am not trying to necessarily discredit the poll. I just want to see another independent and more widely known firm before I believe it.
I have not done a statistical analysis of this poll. You don’t my statistical sampling skills?
I meant, you doubt my statistical sampling skills. We need to have a Margin of error with 99% confidence dual.