The Survey USA poll is an automated call to random phone numbers. The calls have a recorded message from WHAS-TV's Gary Roedemeier that says something like "this is Gary Roedemeier from WHAS-TV. We'd like you to answer a few questions for our survey". The person is then asked, "if the election were held today, who would you vote for for Congress? Press 1 for Anne Northup, 2 for John Yarmuth, etc." There is an undecided option. But since there's no live operator asking follow up questions, there's no way to ask the undecideds which way they're leaning. There will another WHAS-TV/Survey USA poll out this week.

The C-J Bluegrass State Poll uses live callers who read the same type questions. But they can, and do, ask the undecideds to pick a candidate. That's why Northup likely has a larger lead in the C-J poll than the Survey USA poll.

The Northup campaign says the C-J poll closely mirrors what their tracking polls are showing. But the C-J poll also has Kelly Downard with just 18% in the Mayor's race. I find that number almost unbelievable. And remember, it was the C-J's poll that had Jack Conway trailing Northup by 12 points a few days before the 2002 election that Conway lost by 3 points.
This year, an Abramson poll reportedly shows Yarmuth leading Northup by 6, though the Abramson folks won't release specifics, so I'm skeptical. I'm even more skeptical because the same poll reportedly shows Paul Shaughnessy leading Bobbie Holsclaw in the Jefferson County Clerks race. I guess what I'm saying is that I trust the Survey USA numbers. They've been pretty good in the past despite the skeptical comments I hear from pollsters and political consultants about the validity of an "automated" poll.