After a period where the Michigan Senate race had tightened to one-point in late September (Trafalgar Group; 9/26-28; 1,042 MI likely voters; Peters, 48-47%), two new surveys, one from the Glengariff Group (9/30-10/3; 600 MI likely voters) and the other from the Ipsos national polling firm (9/29-10/6; 709 MI likely voters; online), both show larger leads for the first-term Senator. Glengariff posts Sen. Peters to a 45-40% edge, while Ipsos finds a slightly larger seven-point spread, 50-43%.
It appears the presidential race is not the only contest seeing diverse polling results produced during the same time period. Two new Michigan Senate surveys were released yesterday from the Trafalgar Group and Marist College.
The Marist data comes in the early part of the September 19-25 sampling period (9/19-23; 799 MI likely voters; live interview) and finds Sen. Gary Peters (D) leading challenger John James (R) by a five-point margin, 49-44%. Within the same period, Trafalgar, that attempts to quantify the “shy” right of center voter (9/23-25; 1,047 MI likely voters), finds the two candidates tied at 47% apiece. Once again, we see different methodologies producing disparate results. Two pollsters surveyed the open western Michigan 3rd Congressional District, the We Ask America firm and the ALG Research polling organization. The results are radically different even though they were conducted over almost exactly the same time period.
We Ask America surveyed the district from September 19-20 (400 MI-3 likely voters; combination live interview and automated calls) and see Republican Iraq and Afghan War veteran and grocery store magnate Peter Meijer leading attorney Hillary Scholten, 48-41%, with both candidates having almost identical favorability index ratings. Mr. Meijer records a 39:30% positive ratio, while Ms. Scholten registers a 36:28% positive to negative index. Conversely, ALG (9/16-20; 501 MI-3 likely voters) arrives at a much different conclusion. This data finds Ms. Scholten holding a two-point, 44-42%, edge. Voting history suggests that the WAA result is the more accurate of the two, however, considering this district has elected a Democrat only one time since 1912. We have two more examples of pollsters testing the same electorate and arriving at vastly different conclusions. In Arizona, Morning Consult (9/11-20; 907 AZ likely voters; online from pre-determined sampling group) finds retired astronaut Mark Kelly (D) holding a nine-point, 49-40%, lead over appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R). While Fabrizio Lee & Associates also see Mr. Kelly with an edge, the margin is much different. From their survey (9/14-16; 800 AZ likely voters; live interview), Kelly’s lead is only two points over Sen. McSally, 48-46%.
We see a similar pattern in Michigan. The Ipsos research organization (9/11-16; 637 MI likely voters) detects Sen. Gary Peters (D) with a six-point, 49-43%, spread over manufacturing company owner John James (R), while the Marketing Resource Group (9/14-19; 600 MI likely voters) sees only a two point difference between the two, 42-40%, with a greater undecided factor. Democratic pollster Global Strategy Group released their survey of the western Michigan 3rd District (9/8-10; 400 MI-3 likely voters; live interview) and sees Iraq War veteran and grocery store magnate Peter Meijer (R) and attorney Hillary Scholten (D) tied at 41% apiece.
The sample skews left, as the generic ballot test reaches 45D-40R%, in a district that hasn’t elected a Democrat since Richard Vander Veen won a special election in 1974 to replace Gerald Ford (R), who had resigned the seat to become Vice President. Mr. Vander Veen was then defeated in 1976 and the seat has remained Republican ever since. Current incumbent Justin Amash was elected as a Republican but switched to the Libertarian Party. Pollsters are active across the country in testing political campaigns and seem to be routinely delivering starkly different results for the same contests over a similar time frame. We have four such examples in Senate races.
Three different pollsters tested the Arizona Senate race between appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R) and retired astronaut Mark Kelly (D). While the three polling firms active during the first week of September all find Mr. Kelly leading, the point spread ranges from six all the way to 17 points. The high pollster for Kelly is Fox News (8/29-9/1; 772 AZ likely voters) and the six-point low is Democratic pollster Change Research (9/4-6; 470 AZ likely voters). Four pollsters were testing Michigan in early September, and the spread here ranges from a one-point deficit for Republican businessman John James opposite Sen. Gary Peters (D) to a dozen percentage points. Here, the most favorable James pollster is the Republican Tarrance Group (9/1-3; 569 MI registered voters) and the strongest Sen. Peters’ survey comes from the London, England based Redfield & Wilton Strategies (8/30-9/3; 967 MI likely voters). The Minnesota race between Sen. Tina Smith (D) and former US Rep. Jason Lewis (R) is attracting more attention. Three survey research firms were conducting polls in early September and found Sen. Smith’s advantage extending between two and eleven points. The high Smith poll came from Survey USA (9/4-7; 553 MN likely voters) and the best for Mr. Lewis is from Republican Harper Polling (8/30-9/1; 501 MN likely voters). North Carolinians are regularly polled, and the beginning of September is no exception. Again, brandishing wide ranges, seven surveys and/or iterations within such were conducted during the same time frame, and the margin stretches between an even race for Sen. Thom Tillis (R) and former state Senator Cal Cunningham (D) to a ten-point spread. The even poll came from Monmouth University’s (8/29-9/1; 401 NC likely voters) low turnout model (but the high turnout model suggested only a two-point difference), while the high spike came for Mr. Cunningham from Redfield & Wilton Strategies (8/30-9/3; 951 NC likely voters). A number of polls were conducted over the Labor Day period and we generally see a closing of the presidential race. In Florida, NBC News/Marist College (8/31-9/6; 1,047 FL registered voters; 766 likely voters; live interview) discovers President Trump forging ahead to record a one-point, 48-47%, edge among registered voters, while he and former Vice President Joe Biden are tied at 48% among likely voters.
Turning to another swing state, Michigan, the Glengariff Group (9/1-3; 600 MI likely voters) finds Mr. Biden leading 47-42%, which is a closer spread than seen in most current surveys. The latest three polls from the international research firm Redfield & Wilton Strategies, Hodas & Associates, and Morning Consult, all of which conducted studies between August 11th and September 3rd, projected Mr. Biden to leads of 11, 11, and 10 points, respectively. A pair of new Pennsylvania surveys also see the contest closing. Redfield & Wilton Strategies, the London, England based firm (8/30-9/3; 1,053 PA likely voters; online), found a five-point spread, with Mr. Biden up 47-42%. Local Pennsylvania research firm Susquehanna Polling & Research (8/26-9/4; 498 PA likely voters; live interview) sees the margin between the two national candidates dropping to two points, 44-42%, again in Mr. Biden’s favor. Still closing, but in a reversed manner, We Ask America (9/1-3; 500 MO likely voters; live interview) projects that President Trump’s Missouri advantage over Mr. Biden is dropping to five percentage points, 49-45%. This, while the same sampling universe detects an expanding margin for Gov. Mike Parson (R) in his election battle with State Auditor Nicole Galloway. That contest is breaking 54-41% in Mr. Parson’s favor. Public Policy Polling again surveyed the Michigan electorate and this time found an unusual pattern. While other pollsters are seeing the Senate race again tighten, PPP’s latest survey (8/28-29; 897 MI voters) finds Sen. Gary Peters (D) leading manufacturing company business owner John James, 47-39%, but the same sample favors Joe Biden over President Trump by just a 48-44% split. Recently, Mr. James has been faring better than President Trump in the Michigan ballot test polls.
The new Trafalgar Group poll was released for the battleground state of Michigan (8/14-23; 1,048 MI likely voters) and, has often been the case, finds a result opposite that of most other pollsters. According to the Trafalgar results, President Trump holds a 47-45% Wolverine State lead over Joe Biden. In 2016, Trafalgar came to national prominence because it was the only firm to correctly predict a Donald Trump victory in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The reason for the discrepancy is Trafalgar attempts to account for what is now being termed as the “shy Trump voter”, that is, a person who is voting for the President but will not say so publicly or to a pollster. Most people believe there is an under-poll for Trump, and Trafalgar is attempting, as they successfully did in 2016, to determine that number. Other pollsters surveying Michigan during the same time period as Trafalgar project a clear Biden lead, but at least one of them, from the Civiqs polling firm surveying for the Daily Kos Elections website (8/13-17; 631 MI registered voters), isn’t so far away. They see Mr. Biden leading only 49-46%. Change Research (8/21-23; 809 MI likely voters) posts the Biden lead to 50-44%. Redfield & Wilton Strategies is much further away (8/16-19; 812 MI likely voters), seeing Biden with a large 50-38% margin. All four of these surveys point to how much the sample selection methodology means in forecasting a polling result. The Trafalgar Group’s Michigan poll, as described above in the presidential section, also tested the Senate race between first-term Senator Gary Peters (D) and Republican manufacturing company owner John James. This race was polling close before the COVID shutdown but went clearly in Sen. Peters’ direction afterward. We now see the campaign tightening again, and Trafalgar, once more using the sample methodology discussed above, projects Mr. James to a one-point, 48-47%, edge.
The two other pollsters in the field during the same time as Trafalgar that tested the Senate race, Change Research and Redfield & Wilton Strategies, see a different result. Change finds Sen. Peters up 50-45%, while Redfield & Wilton posts the incumbent to a larger 48-39% advantage. |
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