Mon 12 Dec 2005
51% Yes / 38% Favorable (UPDATED)
Posted by Editor under Democrat , Hackett , Research , Rumor , Speculation[7] Comments
An internal poll [pdf] released by the Sherrod Brown campaign is making waves on the internet. First the numbers:
Ohio Democratic primary matchup
With leaners
Brown (D) 51
Hackett (D) 22
Undecided 26
Without leaners
Brown (D) 47
Hackett (D) 20
Undecided 33
Name ID — Favorable/Unfavorable/Recognize but no opinion/Never heard of him
Brown 38/9/33/20
Hackett 13/6/33/48
Among voters who are familiar with both candidates
Brown 52
Hackett 30
The poll was conducted by Diane Feldman, President of The Feldman Group, a highly regarded national political research firm. (I’ve heard this from more than just Brown’s campaign). It was conducted right after Brown’s widely publicised statewide bus tour, which one would think would give him a certain boost.
The methodology is significant:
Methodological note: This poll of 600 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted December 6th and 7th, 2005, by professional interviewers. Respondents indicated they are likely to participate in the May 2006 Democratic primary election. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.0 percent.
This is a big difference then other polls is that this one only includes likely primary voters, which is all that matters right now.
The background on how this poll is interesting. A diarist over @ DKos wrote up about a private event where Brown was citing the poll. This caused the Brown campaign to provide the poll to bloggers several days later after being asked about it.
Already this has caused a lot of people to react very strongly… many again urging Hackett to run against Jean Schmidt.
Now onto analysis…
The poll shows Sherrod Brown with a significant but not unexpected advantage over Hackett amongst likely primary voters. Brown is a veteran Ohio politician with significant state wide experience. Hackett has only run in approximately 10% of the state. Brown’s fat bankroll, ability to manipulate things as a member of Congress, ties to the Ohio Democratic Machine and expected endorsements all add to his frontrunner status.
But… there are some silver linings to this poll… Only 18% of the people in this poll have an opinion of Hackett what so ever. Brown wins 51% in the poll even though only 38% of the people polled have a favorable opinion of him. There are a lot of undecideds.
This makes the numbers very soft.
Being frontrunner is a vulnerable position. All it would take would be an endorsement from a group in Brown’s labor base to drive a significant wedge into his campaign. I’ve heard that Brown has been working overtime trying to cut off Hackett’s access to cash and prevent him from getting labor endoresments. His calls also supposedly include efforts to try to get Hackett to run again in 2nd. Brown knows how much damage can be done to his campaign if his base is seen as crumbling. Much like the Schmidt campaign Brown is smart enough to fear a prolonged campaign where more and more people start to make side by side comparisons of the two candidates.
The numbers are soft. The poll is a biased, internal poll. Not enough is known about the sample. It does not reflect other independent polls. I can see why Brown is leaking it, but it isn’t the end of the world or this race… otherwise why would Brown be making so many powerplays behind the scenes?
The bottom line is that Hackett has a lot of work ahead of him to catch up to Sherrod Brown. But this isn’t the first time that experts have counted Hackett out early on in a race.
UPDATE: The Fix is also in on the subject, and gets to the heart of things:
As Frisch rightly pointed out, a name identification deficit affords Hackett considerable room to grow if he can raise the millions necessary to run campaign commercials across the state. That remains the major question for Hackett campaign. Undoubtedly, one of the Brown campaign’s goals in releasing this poll was to shut off the cash spigot for Hackett.
Also, Buckeye Senate advises to ignore the poll.
Footnote…
I have asked the Brown campaign a few questions concerning this poll. They were kind enough to quickly provide me with answers.
- Is this PDF the original document submitted to the campaign regarding the poll?
“Yes this poll is the original document submitted to us.” - Is this the only poll done for your campaign?
“We have not done any other polls at this time.” - If not will you provide all of the polls conducted for the campaign?
(doesn’t apply.) - When was the CLW meeting that was discussed in the Kos diary?
“We had rough numbers over the weekend that Sherrod referenced at the CLW meeting on Saturday.”
One point that it might be useful to make is that in some polls Hackett is polling better than Brown against registered voters, while Brown is polling better against registered Democrats likely to vote in the primary. This translates into Hackett having a better chance of defeating Mike DeWine. Of course it depends on which poll you read. In other’s it’s neck and neck.
The crux of things is do you think that Sherrod Brown can defeat Mike DeWine. I think that he might… but I am worried. I know damned well that Paul Hackett can beat DeWine.
Brown is a lot more well known than Hackett but still only has only a 38% approval rating and only taking 51% of the vote. At this stage in the game especially after Sherrod had just announced his candidacy, an internal poll paid by Brown should have Brown at a much higher approval rating and he should be getting 60-70% of the Democratics vote simply because Hackett is (according to this poll) not well known.
Thus with Sherrod only taking 50% of the vote, Hackett definitely has a chance. What this poll tells me is that Hackett needs to get out of Southern Ohio and start campaigning in Northern Ohio. He needs more name recognition.
A poll this early is all about name recognition (kind of like Hillary being ahead in the Democratic nomination polls for 2008 just because she is more well known than the others. This does not mean that someone like Warner wouldn’t be able to win).
This poll is different from Rasmussen’s poll (an independent poll) in which Brown has a 77% name recognition and Hackett has a 70%. In this poll Brown has a 80% name recognition and Hackett has only 52%. This makes me suspicious that this poll has heavily sampled Northern Ohio possibly Cleveland area where Brown is more well known and Hackett is not. This poll is not passing the smell test. (It would be nice to see internals).
Brown released this poll to try to intimidate Hackett to leave the race and try to cut off his money supply. Thus I am calling this poll, Brown’s PR poll. We all know that Hackett is going to stay until the end because he said he would. Hackett is NOT going to leave the race based upon one internal poll paid by Brown. I wouldn’t worry about this.
I have a feeling that we are going to see polling in the near future in which Hackett is going be leading DeWine but Brown is going to be neck and neck with DeWine. When that happens, Ohio Democrats are going to look long and hard at Hackett and will have to decide whether to vote for Brown who may not win in the general or vote for Hackett who has a much better chance. I suspect those primary numbers to get really tight at the end.
Brown’s PR poll is a good move right now for Brown to try to intimidate Hackett but it may backfire in the end. If we start seeing polls that show Hackett getting closer and closer to Brown and Hackett being the candidate who is more likely to beat DeWine, this will be a tremendous boost for Hackett. Thus it is NOT good to peak to early and sometimes it is better to be the underdog.
Hackett should stay in the Senate race.
First, he said he would and his appeal is his frankness.
Second, he has a good chance of winning the primary. These polls are fairly meaningless at this point.
Third, he would be less likely to win in OH2. Schmidt may not be his opponent. McEwen would eat Hackett for lunch.
Damn….I forgot about McEwen….you got a point Eric. Although Im not sure about lunch….a small apetizer maybe.
The rubber bouncing check writer, former Ohio congressman turned K-street lobbyist, living in Virginia pretending to represent the intrests of Ohio’s 2nd district McEwen? Seroiusly Minimouse, you have a better shot at the GOP primary than McEwen, Bob has waaaaaay too much baggage.
If Hackett bases his decision on a Dec. poll with 5 months to go, he’s crazy.
We’re supposed to be buying Christmas gifts, not guessing who’s going to win a race 5 months from now.
Except for Hackett and his inner core. He and they should be running around to all 88 counties in his Winnebago or whatever, meeting with the county party bigs, and getting his boots on the ground; if he’s not, shame on him. He can do this. Brown is largely stuck in Washington; he can’t Hackett needs to be set up for a shock and awe effort during the last three weeks before Election Day when voters, even dedicated Dem primary voters, FINALLY start paying attention.
If anyone is making decisions, or feeling up or down based on polls after the Issues 2,3,4 and 5 polling fiasco, they are out of their minds.
I think Hackett would beat McEwen in the 2nd, as he would have in August–by 10+ points.
Tom, personally I think that you are right on all counts.