{"id":9977,"date":"2018-03-26T13:18:54","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T17:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9977"},"modified":"2018-03-26T13:18:54","modified_gmt":"2018-03-26T17:18:54","slug":"leventhal-poll-shows-wide-open-executive-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9977","title":{"rendered":"Leventhal Poll Shows Wide Open Executive Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Council Member George Leventhal, who is running for County Executive, has released an internal poll from Celinda Lake\u2019s firm showing a wide open race.\u00a0 The poll surveyed 400 likely voters with a margin of error of 4.9 points.\u00a0 We reprint the three-page polling memo below and have a few comments following.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \u00a0\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So what can be gleaned from this?<\/p>\n

First, voters aren\u2019t paying attention yet.\u00a0 No candidate draws more than 11% support in the first run of questions and undecided gets 58%.<\/p>\n

Second, the margin of error (4.9 points) matters.\u00a0 In the first run, that means there is no statistically significant difference between the six candidates.\u00a0 For example, Bill Frick polls at 2% but, with the margin of error, could be at 6.9%.\u00a0 Marc Elrich polls at 11% but, with the margin of error, could be at 6.1%.\u00a0 In effect, no one is leading.<\/p>\n

Third, even with the \u201cengaged communications\u201d part of the poll, Leventhal is still within the margin of error against Elrich.\u00a0 As for the \u201cfinal ballot\u201d that shows Leventhal blowing out the rest of the field, it appears to depend on giving respondents additional information on Leventhal and not on the other candidates.\u00a0 It \u201csimulates Leventhal having a resources and communications advantage\u201d that does not exist.\u00a0 At the moment, he will be fifth in cash on hand<\/a> once the latest public matching funds are disbursed.<\/p>\n

Could Leventhal win?\u00a0 Sure, it\u2019s possible.\u00a0 He is a four-term incumbent, a former chair of the county Democratic Party, has a geographically diverse base of small contributions<\/a> and is working as hard as any candidate in the county.<\/p>\n

But the simulations showing Leventhal leading the field right now reek of spin.\u00a0 Voters aren\u2019t fully engaged yet and no one other than David Blair has started mailing regularly and going on television<\/a>.\u00a0 We believe the poll\u2019s real message, which is that no one has wrapped up this election quite yet.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: the author is a publicly-listed supporter of Roger Berliner<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Council Member George Leventhal, who is running for County Executive, has released an internal poll from Celinda Lake\u2019s firm showing a wide open race.\u00a0 The poll surveyed 400 likely voters with a margin of error of 4.9 points.\u00a0 We reprint the three-page polling memo below and have a few comments following. \u00a0 … Continue reading Leventhal Poll Shows Wide Open Executive Race<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,492,16,131],"tags":[1545,1627,1464,1538],"class_list":["post-9977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-county-executive","category-george-leventhal","category-polls","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-county-executive","tag-george-leventhal","tag-polls"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2AV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9984,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9977\/revisions\/9984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}