Fletcher Losing Ground - Survey USA
The new Survey USA/WHAS 11 poll is not kind to Governor Fletcher's reelection chances.
Here's the story we're running at noon today. I'll have more detail when I get a chance to write more later:
BAD NEWS THIS AFTERNOON FOR GOVERNOR ERNIE FLETCHER'S RE-ELECTION CHANCES.
A NEW SURVEY U-S-A POLL SHOWS FLETCHER ACTUALLY LOSING GROUND TO STEVE BESHEAR.
WHAS-11'S POLITICAL REPORTER MARK HEBERT IS IN THE NEWSROOM WITH THE DETAILS, MARK --- STILL A COMMANDING LEAD FOR BESHEAR?
ERNIE FLETCHER WAS HOPING HE COULD GAIN MOMENTUM AND CLOSE THE GAP BETWEEN HIMSELF AND STEVE BESHEAR THEN PULL OFF AN ELECTION DAY MIRACLE. IT APPEARS THAT'S UNLIKELY TO HAPPEN, BASED ON WHAT WE'RE SEEING IN THE LATEST SURVEY U-S-A/WHAS 11 POLL.
THE POLL TAKEN OVER THE WEEKEND SHOWS BESHEAR WITH A 20 POINT LEAD, 58% TO 38% WITH JUST TWO WEEKS TO GO UNTIL ELECTION DAY.
THAT'S A BIGGER LEAD THAN BESHEAR HAD JUST A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO WHEN SURVEY U-S-A SHOWED THE DEMOCRAT WITH A 16 POINT LEAD.
WHILE FLETCHER SEEMS TO BE SOLIDIFYING HIS SUPPORT AMONG REPUBLICANS, 81 PERCENT OF THE DEMOCRATS POLLED SAY THEY PLAN TO VOTE FOR BESHEAR. AND THERE ARE MANY MORE DEMOCRATS IN KENTUCKY THAN REPUBLICANS. BESHEAR LEADS IN ALL REGIONS OF THE STATE AND HAS A TWO TO ONE LEAD AMONG VOTERS IN LOUISVILLE AND SURROUNDING COUNTIES.
ACCORDING TO SURVEY U-S-A, THE VAST MAJORITY OF KENTUCKY VOTERS HAVEN'T BUDGED SINCE MAY MEANING SOMETHING DRAMATIC WOULD HAVE TO HAPPEN IN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS FOR FLETCHER TO HAVE A CHANCE.
Comments
Mark, honey, turn off your caps lock and take a deep breath.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 23, 2007 11:23 AM
11:23, honey, newscopy is in all caps, you nincompoop.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 23, 2007 12:30 PM
When you write script for television that will be on a teleprompter, it has to be in all CAPS.
Do your research before hurling insults.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 23, 2007 12:42 PM
Well, Mark, it's hard to give the guy a fair shake when you and your liberal buddies smear him and don't tell the WHOLE truth. Still waiting on that formal apology from you for being absolutely WRONG during the debate about the $25 million legislation proposed by Fletcher. It's just a shame that John Q. Public in this state won't "dig in" and discover the truth, instead of being hand fed all of these lies and spin by the liberal media. Come on! Stumbo and his cronies were on a witch hunt because Fletcher is a Republican. Plain and simple. Gov. Fletcher didn't do anything that his Democrat predecessors didn't do beforehand! Well, except for bankrupt the state. Yeah, Fletcher was actually fiscally responsible and got Kentucky back on track. Oh, how easily we forget what horrible shape we were in when Fletcher took office and cleaned things up! OPEN YOUR EYES, PEOPLE!!!
Posted by: Kelly from LaGrange | October 23, 2007 1:07 PM
Mark, you media people. Do you not have any conscious as to how much of your expected job you all aren't doing?? Be grateful we nurses have more ethics than you all apparently do! This is supposed to be your home too, and I know you can't honestly say you are doing your share to make Ky the best it can be. One thing for sure, if Beshear wins, you media people will always have lots of good stories to write as all of his and his friends skeletons come out.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 23, 2007 7:21 PM
It seems that you can make a poll say anything you want if you skew the results from the get go.
From SurveyUSA website:
Filtering: 1,000 state of KY adults were interviewed 10/19/07 through 10/21/07. Of them, 908 were registered to vote. Of them, 572 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the 11/06/07 statewide election, and were included in this survey. Party composition of likely voters in this tracking release of the tracking poll is: 39% Republican, 54% Democrat, 7% Independent.
... There are other possible sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed, question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a likely voter)...
View report with links at:
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReportEmail.aspx?g=340fca9b-ba37-4c79-8a10-79b6fbb16659
Of 1,000 surveyed, 908 were registered voters. However, in SurveyUSA deemed that only 572 were actually 'likely' to vote. Interestingly enough, the composition of the sample of likely voters was 39% Republican, 54% Democrat, 7% Independent/undecided. The contrived outcome was, of course, 38% Republican, 58% Democrat, 4% Independent/undecided. I'm kind of surprised they even bothered.
Posted by: Hewson | October 23, 2007 8:34 PM