Reply #2: TheTribune poll - there may be a problem with it [View All]

[sonias]

First Reading blog 11/03/09
Poll watch

The Texas Tribune launches today with a poll that shows Perry leading Hutchison, 42 percent to 30 percent. Debra Medina comes in at 7 percent. The poll shows nobody gaining much traction on the Democratic side, but Kinky Friedman leading the field.

Democrat Hank Gilbert finished at the bottom of the pack in the poll with 0.3 percent of the vote, and his campaign responded swiftly. In a lengthy statement e-mailed to reporters this morning, Gilbert spokesman Vince Leibowitz said, “It is a complete and total joke. In addition to Hank Gilbert having been left off part of the poll — a fact the Tribune fails to mention but which is clearly mentioned in a footnote of the poll — the company conducting the poll is one that conducts unreliable internet-based polls.”

The poll was conducted Oct. 20-27 in conjunction with the University of Texas. It’s worth noting that it came on the heels of a rough patch of news for Perry, specifically the national spotlight cast on his shakeup of the Forensic Science Commission. And yet it gives Perry the same lead as the last UT poll, conducted during the summer. This must be very discouraging for the Hutchison campaign, which to this point has been much more focused on Perry-bashing than laying out a vision for the state.

The Perry/Hutchison matchup is based on questioning of 357 respondents, and it has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.19 percent. One sign of hope for the Hutchison campaign: Almost one in five respondents — 18 percent — remains undecided.

Sonia