As noted in this morning's earlier post, NY-20 was the major outlier in the races where other polls could be compared to Majority Watch's work. Today's Siena Poll in that race adds more reason for skepticism. It shows Gillibrand trailing Sweeney by 14 points. The Majority Watch poll, taken around the same time, shows her ahead by 13, a 27-point spread.
Is Majority Watch full of crazy talk? That seems to be the theme of some postings here and on other blogs. While keeping in mind that old chestnut "the only poll that matters is on election day", let's look how Majority Watch polls stack up in 8 9 other contested districts with multiple recent polls.
It looks like there are three four districts where Majority Watch is in the ballpark:
Here are races that have only partisan comparison polling, but MW seems reasonable:
Here are some districts where MW may be an outlier:
Other than NY-20, I don't see a poll where Majority Watch looks way out of sync with the rest of the professional pollsters. But, as with the first poll in this post, I recommend that all readers who are interested in polls read the excellent analysis at pollster.com, which makes it clear that polling in House races is far less accurate than Presidential race polling.
(Update: Forgot WA-08)
The crosstabs [pdf] for the Majority Watch poll show how important the Monroe/Ontario suburbs (the "Volvo-Donut") are to the Massa effort. Majority Watch divides the district into the North (Monroe and Ontario) and the South (the rest). In the North, Massa leads Kuhl by 26 points. In the South, Massa's ahead by one percent.
According to this poll, everything's worse for for Kuhl in the North. The "voter motivation index", which measures how likely it is that voters are going to vote, is the highest in there (7.76/9.0). Voters in the North are the most certain in their choice (83%), and the least pleased (67%) with the job that Bush is doing.
Overall, the bad news keeps on coming for Kuhl. 82% of voters in the entire district are "certain" in their choice. Only 9% of the voters are undecided. The voter motivation index for Massa voters is higher than that of Kuhl voters. Democrats are more motivated to vote than Republicans.
With undecided, certainty and motivation numbers like these, it's hard to see light at the end of the tunnel for the Kuhl campaign. If this survey is right, voters in the 29th have made up their minds, they've chosen Massa, and they're going to vote that choice.
Majority Watch, an independent, non-partisan polling project, has Eric Massa leading Randy Kuhl by 12 points in a poll taken Sunday and Monday in the 29th. The poll uses IVR (touch tone response) technology and has a margin of error of 3%.
This is the first year of the Majority Watch polling project, the methodology hasn't been proven, and House races are hard to poll. Nevertheless, this is huge news for the Massa campaign.
Full crosstabs [pdf] are available and worth a closer look.
Like a lot of other analysts, Ken Rudin of National Public Radio has the 29th on his list of key races. But, unlike every other analyst I've seen, he rates the 29th a toss-up. That might be a shot in the dark, or perhaps it's an indication of things to come.
Randy Kuhl has posted a new ad featuring Amo Hougton's endorsement. Houghton is Kuhl's widely respected predecessor in the 29th.
Eric Massa's web site features his new endorsement from the Messenger-Post Newspapers. This chain publishes a Canandaigua daily and suburban weeklies in Monroe County.
Randy Kuhl makes much of his local background and his 24 years in the New York State legislature. At the debate in Bath, where his successors in both the state Assembly and Senate were present, he went through a long discussion how he decided to run for Congress. Part of his reasoning was that it was time to let those two get a chance to move up in the organization. Both are running unopposed, as Kuhl did 9 of the 12 times he ran for state office.
Kuhl's campaign manager is his son James. His main spokesman, Bob Van Wicklin, also worked for Amo Houghton, who had 79% of the vote the last time he ran for Congress.
Though Kuhl can rightly claim that he has far more legislative experience than Eric Massa, he can't make the same claim about campaign experience. This is probably the first tight race of his political career, and it's also probably the first for his staff. As we come down the home stretch, we can expect both campaigns to make a few "first timer" mistakes. That's what makes this race so interesting.
Rochesterturning has the most in-depth coverage of last night's debate. Rnews's short story on the debate is the only other piece I've seen. It sounds like not much new ground was covered.
According to Rnews, in a question on Katrina, both candidates agreed that FEMA should be a stand-alone agency, and Kuhl was "was totally amazed at the inability and failure of FEMA just a year ago during Katrina". That's a bit of a switch from his response in Canandaigua, where he played up the speed at which Congress appropriated money during the Katrina disaster.
Rochesterturning reports that Massa gave a defense of same sex civil unions. Kuhl repeated his opposition to gay marriage. The issue of equal rights for homosexuals is an interesting one for Republicans, since the Foley scandal has revealed the hypocrisy that surrounds this issue in the upper echelons of the Republican party. Closeted homosexuals are apparently OK, as are openly gay advisors, as long as neither group demands equal rights.
The final debate of the campaign has just finished. I didn't see it, because, like many of my suburban Monroe County neighbors, I don't subscribe to Time-Warner Cable.
Debates are only important if voters watch. Here's the list of debates in the 29th and the coverage of each:
None of these debates were broadcast in prime-time on an over-the-air station. The one over-the-air TV broadcast was during off-hours on a low-coverage UHF channel.
My conclusion: there's no reason to think that the debates were widely watched, or that they will have anything but minimal impact on this race.
The Rural Patriot has posted a thorough analysis of a Kuhl mailer. The theme, like his recent ad campaign, is taxes. The tagline is "Eric Massa must think money grows on trees." Along with Massa's recent hide-and-seek ad, which featured kids hiding behind trees, the negative campaigning in the 29th has taken on a distinctly arborial flavor.
The Patriot has also unearthed Massa's MyDD post upon which the whole Kuhl "he'll raise taxes" claim is based. It looks like the claim is based on Massa's desire to repeal the tax cuts for the top 1%, though I don't know how Kuhl gets an average of $2,000 per person in additional taxes for the 29th, a district where the average per-capita income is $21,255.
Reader Rich writes to make two important points about the open-mouth kiss given to Randy Kuhl on Saturday by the Hornell Evening Tribune:
According to my figures, if Mr. Kuhl is 63, he was born in 1943. He became 18 in 1961. The 26th amendment, which changed the voting age from 21 to 18, was ratified in 1971. How could he have been voting in this district since he was 18? Did he vote illegally? Who does he think he is fooling?
He is also running for Congress from NY-29th district, not the 26th.
I agree with Rich that the Hornell paper needs better fact-checking on its puff pieces.
Reader Jim writes to remind those in the Rochester area that the last debate in the 29th will be telecast tonight on RNews at 7 p.m. I don't have cable, so I won't be able to watch it unless it is streamed over the Internet. But I trust other Rochester-area bloggers will be watching and reporting.
Randy Kuhl's new money numbers have just been posted. He raised $90K from individuals and $133K from PACs in the period from August 23 to September 30. That's about $80K less than Massa raised in the same period.
The Cheney fundraiser on September 29th is included in this period. Media reports estimated its take at between $125K and $200K. That event must have fallen far short of expectations.
Kuhl still has an impressive lead in cash on hand, holding steady at $550K.