July
2006
Lautenschlager leads Falk among Dems
Citing the results from a Badger Poll by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager claimed that she leads Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk by an impressive 14 percentage points.
Impressive right? You may want to think twice.
Lautenschlager, or at least her campaign team who handles media releases and updates her website, used some fairly worthless numbers, citing a lead focused on dem voters as well as a slight lead among independents. (Falk supporters contend that Lautenschlager can't win a general so she ought to just step aside and let the more electable Kathleen Falk take on the GOP nominee.) In the general, it's really a three way race for the general election with the numbers showing Falk then Paul Bucher then Launtenschlager but the difference between the three is a paltry 1.2% (well within the 4% margin of error) so it's really anyones race.
When asked who they prefer for Attorney General, poll takers said:
Don't know 35.5%
Falk 20.2%
Bucher 19.4%
Lautenschlager 19.0%
Van Hollen 5.2%
Refused 0.8%
Falk came out with an announcement of her own stating that she leads all candidates. Credit Falk for sticking to the facts but a 1.2% lead over Launtenschlager falls within the 4% margin of error for the poll. In other words, Kathleen Falk is leading Lautenschlager but she still trails behind "Don't know".
What is telling is the utter worthlessness of the Van Hollen campaign. If he doesn't do something to pump up his name recognition over the next month, he's in trouble.
Instead of using the correct numbers, Lautenschlager used the favorable ratings for her poll. In that poll question, she does hold a commanding lead of 27.4% versus Falk's 16.5% and Bucher's 13.2% but that doesn't mean that's the way the votes will go. It simply means she's got decent name recognition.
Lautenschlager does suffer from some significant unfavorable ratings. Again, she leads in that poll question. With a staggering 28.5% unfavorable rating, she manages to have more people dislike her than like her (27.4%). Falk trails with 7.3%, Bucher with 3.7% and Van Hollen with 3.9%.
What does this add up to? Well clearly Lautenschlager doesn't hold the commanding lead an incumbent usually hopes for at this point in a campaign but she's not done for by any stretch of the imagination. The question now is whether Peg can parlay some of her dem support into significant independent support.
For now, it's anyone's race.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan, Watchdogging Campaigns
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You’ve got your facts wrong, Watchdog.
Lautenschlager’s press release says…”Among Democrats, Lautenschlager leads by nearly 14 percent, 37.1% to 23.2% and also leads among independents.”
Here’s a link to Lautenschlager’s press release:
http://www.thewheelerreport.com/releases/July06/July11/0711lautenschlagerpoll.pdf
And here’s a link to the survey results:
http://www.uwsc.wisc.edu/BP22PressRelease_WIrace1.pdf
Sorry Joe but it looks like your confusion is the same confusion I originally had when I saw her press release. Read the survey which you sent me the link to (which was already in the story) and you’ll find that it says she is more well known and that her favorables are higher than others.
I don’t know how you skipped the section right before that in the survey that says it’s still anyones race but if you read the survey you’ll find that you got your own facts wrong.
I didn’t skip that section. Favorability and Name ID are two of the best indicators of a candidates electability. Lautenschlager has a commanding lead on both counts less than 60 days from the primary. That sounds worthy of crowing about to me.
True, the survey report opines that it’s still anyone’s race because they don’t have great data. They didn’t survey for only likey Democratic Primary voters and many of those surveyed didn’t have opinions either way. This is a very general poll and not one that is specifically focused on the Dem Primary for AG.
Compare your blog headline vs. Lautenschlager’s press release. Lautenschlager never claimed to be leading “Falk by an impressive 14 percentage points” as you have written. Rather, Lautenschlager’s press release specifically says, several times, that she is leading among Democrats.”
So who’s being misleading?
Regular Joe,
It’s a Dem primary! A candidate running in a Dem Primary who says she’s leading by 14, says she’s leading by 14. No way Jim is being misleading.
I think the poll is bunk. You’ve got some real mathematical impossibilities there. How can you be leading among both Dems and incumbents when your poll numbers drop so dramatically, from 37.4 down to 19 percent, and you end up behind Falk when the Party segregations are removed? It doesn’t quite add up; and, still, all those “I don’t knows” in the mix will be the focus of both campaigns.
Throw the poll out — it’s a hot race, with Falk running with some momentum and the incumbent, Lautenschlager, working against some very real negative perceptions. It’s what we already knew.
Thing is, Lautenschlager’s campaign didn’t say “she was leading by 14 points.” They said she’s leading by “14 points among Democrats.” In a Democratic Primary, I think that matters a little bit, don’t you?
Another mistake Watchdog made is claiming that Lautenschlager was using favorability ratings. The 14 points comes from the survey question #31 re. preference for AG. Interestingly, in that question, Falk got more Republican votes than Van Hollen. I don’t think many of those Republicans will be voting in the Dem Primary though.
Joe,
Read the results of the survey. I provided a link in the story. It didn’t separate out dems and independents or even republicans.
If you’re saying that she is leading among dem voters, then I think the problem in her campaign goes deeper than a flawed press release.
“I don’t know” currently leads the pack.
Again, here’s the link to the survey results:
http://www.uwsc.wisc.edu/BP22PressRelease_WIrace1.pdf
go to page 9, question Elec31. You can see the crosstabs for the following question:
“ELEC31 As of now, the candidates for the Democratic party may be Peg Lautenshlauger and Kathleen Falk and the candidates for the Republican party may be Paul Bucher and J.B. Van Hollen. As of now, which candidate do you prefer? Do you prefer Peg Lautenschlauger, Kathleen Falk, Paul Bucher or JB Van Hollen?”
Here are the results (minus the crosstabs for age groups and some others, in order to make this post look halfway decent. My apologies if the formatting of the following is a mess.)
Tot Dem Rep Ind Other
LAUT 37.1 9.0 20.8 16.5
FALK 23.2 11.2 17.6 22.4
BUCHER 2.6 33.6 21.6 15.3
VHOLL 1.3 9.7 4.0 –
DON’T KNOW 35.8 36.6 35.2 42.4
REFUSED – – 0.8 3.5
Total 100 100 100 100
Obviously the survey question separates out Dems, Republicans, Independents and others. If you go to the link, you can also see how it separates them out by age groups as well. This is the data that the Lautenschlager press release was referencing.
Have you noticed that not even the Falk campaign has accused Lautenschlager of misleading on this point? Maybe it’s time for you to acknowledge that you just didn’t read the Lautenschlager press release closely enough and that you just made a mistake. It happens to the best of us.
All this said, keep us the great work. You’ve got a nice looking blog, Watchdog. Peace, Out.