Is an internal poll of any use?
PNJ has a post up telling of an internal poll from the Adler campaign that shows him up by seventeen points.
But get your asterisk ready:
The poll reflects a matchup among Adler, GOP nominee Runyan, and Tea Party independent Peter DeStafano, who gets 12% of the vote in the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research poll.
A third leg that gets double-digits? It’s possible. But Peter DeStafano isn’t known by anyone…even people who are watching the race.
Here’s the problem with the poll:
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research conducted the June 27th-30th survey of 505 likely November voters with a margin of error of approximately +/- 4.3 percentage points.
Honestly, that isn’t a large enough pool to get a good picture of where things are. But the Runyan folks just don’t understand things like that, so they go for a stupid soundbite:
“In October 2009 they (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner) released a poll that showed Jon Corzine beating Chris Christie by 3 points and third-party independent candidate Chris Daggett getting 14% of the vote – a few weeks later Christie ended up winning by roughly 4 points and Daggett didn’t even get 6% of the vote,” Russell said.
It’s true that GQR polled Corzine with a lead on October 8. They found a similar result on October 22. But they were not alone.
Quinnipiac University found Corzine was ahead on October 28. FDU’s PublicMind had Corzine with a one-point lead on October 31. Monmouth University had it neck-and-neck on October 20.
In fact, the polls were all over the place. The problem was that people were cheering on an underdog, but when they got into the voting booth, they passed on the gut check and voted for Chris Christie. New Jersey voters simply decided they didn’t want Jon Corzine to kick around anymore.
There were two glaring weaknesses to the Adler poll (including a third party candidate and small sample size). But Runyan’s folks didn’t pounce on them. Instead, they showed that they have a short memory for facts and a long preference for the sound bite. If this poll is anything close to right; that just isn’t going to work this year.
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