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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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