Independent Tribune
Saturday, October 28, 2006
www.independenttribune.com

Expert: Be wary of polls from campaigns
Who's on top? Numbers in District 8 race between Hayes, Kissell conflict

By Eric C. Deines

Experts claim the voting public doesn't look at political polls.

"And really, they don't care," said Ted Arrington, chair of the Department of Political Science at University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

OK, so why do candidates continue to release the latest and greatest poll results?

Well, it's because campaign contributors do, in fact, look at poll results, Arrington said, calling polls "a little bit of 'rah-rah' to keep the troops motivated."

Also, he said, campaign managers may use polls to keep a candidate energized after months of hard campaigning.

If, by chance, any voters have paid attention to the polls in the U.S. House District 8 race as of late, they may have trouble figuring out exactly who is on top - incumbent Congressman Robin Hayes (R) or his opponent Democrat Larry Kissell, a mill worker-turned-teacher-turned-congressional hopeful.

In October, poll numbers have shown both candidates in the lead.

A release early in the month from the Kissell camp - performed by Raleigh-based pollster OnPoint Polling - showed the race as neck-and-neck, with Hayes leading by just one percentage point.

A week later, Kissell's campaign office released a second independent survey, this one done by bipartisan pollster RT Strategies, which showed Kissell leading the polls 47 percent to Hayes' 42 percent of 1,029 people pulled.

Then, on Oct. 18, Hayes' office released numbers from Virginia-based Public Opinion Strategies (POS) showing a complete turnaround from just five days prior, indicating a Hayes lead of 16 percent.

"Seeing our momentum build in our polling is a reflection of what we see and feel out in the district on a daily basis," wrote Garth Regan, Hayes' campaign manager, in an e-mail on Thursday of the most recent numbers.

Kissell's camp says the numbers were off base.

"It was just a divergent number from what's on the ground," said Steve Hudson, a Kissell campaign official.

And Kissell's office was quick to point out bias in Hayes' polling, noting the congressman's ties with the individual POS pollster Gene Ulm and POS's alleged history of push polling.

A push poll essentially uses polling as a guise to release negative or untrue information about a candidate, thereby swaying opinion and survey results.

While POS's political poll work is done exclusively for Republican candidates, Ulm, who contributed $500 to Hayes in 2003, denies any practice in push polling or working to give Hayes better looking survey results.

"Would I trade my name for $500?" Ulm asked. "Nobody ever hires me so they can have good results on a survey."

So, does the result of every poll really ride on who's doing the polling and for whom they're doing it?

No, said Ulm. It's the method used.

Instead of push-button responses, Ulm said POS uses live callers to ask questions, which usually gets a better response.

A fallacy often committed in polling, Arrington said, is that the polls will often say it is a survey of a given number of "likely voters."

"There is a problem with these off-year polls because try to measure likely voters," he said. "It's much more accurate in a presidential election."

Arrington suggested it's best to avoid polls released by any candidate.

"I wouldn't believe any poll that comes through the campaign office," Arrington said.

Arrington said reliable polls are usually those commissioned by the Associated Press or national poll firm Mason-Dixon Poll.

Arrington said releasing poll numbers may even prove to be dangerous for a candidate.

"If they don't like Robin Hayes and they see he's way ahead in the polls," Arrington said, "that might give them more of a reason to go out and vote against him."

While the numbers Kissell released in October were from an independent pollster, Hudson said early polling for Kissell was done internally and showed Kissell with good numbers.

Both Kissell's and Hayes' camps agree the only true poll takes place on Election Day.

"Our polling is a nice indicator," Regan wrote in an e-mail, "but we are well aware that the only poll that matters is on Election Day."

Kissell officials said the same.

"The only poll that matters is the one taking place on Nov. 7," Hudson said. "We're going to keep running hard."