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Real Clear Politics: CD-6 A Toss UP!? APP: Pallone Leads By Nearly 2-1

Murray’s Poll Means Different Things To Different People

Real Clear Politics looked at the Monmouth University poll released yesterday and moved the NJ-6 race between Frank Pallone and Anna Little from “Likely Dem” to “Toss Up” . 

Meanwhile, the APP ( All Phoney Palloney?) read Patrick Murray’s poll and wrote a headline claiming that Pallone is leading Little “by nearly 2-1.”   2-1?  Murray said Pallone has a 12% lead.   2-1 would be a 33% lead. 12% is not nearly 33%.

Even my own analysis on Murray’s poll has been bothering me:

Murray classifies a likely voter as someone who has voted in 2 of the last four general elections.  Of the 333,519 registered voters in CD-6, 60,053 voted in 2 of the four last general elections; 23,750 (40%) Democrats, 27,791 (46%) Independents and 8,512 (14%) Republicans, according to GOP records of voter activity.

CD-6 has 333,544 registered voters.  In the last five elections, an average of 157,000 people voted.  The average is 144,000 if you don’t count the 2008 presidential election (254,543 voters) and the 2007 state legislative election(96,950 voters).  Yet, only 60,053 people voted in 2 of the last four elections, the criteria Murray used to select “likely voters.”   Granted, Murray used a different list than I did to measure who voted in 2 of the last 4 elections.  If there is a wide disparity between the two, my analysis of his poll is as flawed as the APP headline.  I think I’ll ask him about his list.

Incidentally, Real Clear Politics also rates the CD-3 race between Jon Runyan and John Adler as a toss up.  RCP rates Scott Sipprelle’s race against Rush Holt as “Leans Dem.”  I find the CD-12 rating hard to believe.  I’m not on the ground in CD-12 as much as I like to be, but I wake up every morning to “I’m Scott Sipprelle and I approved this message.”

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Posted: October 7th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Anna Little, Holt, John Adler, Jon Runyan, Pallone, Rush Holt, Scott Sipprelle | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

3 Comments on “Real Clear Politics: CD-6 A Toss UP!? APP: Pallone Leads By Nearly 2-1”

  1. B. Jacobson said at 8:28 am on October 7th, 2010:

    Real Clear Politics previously had the NJ 6 CD as Safe Dem. It jumped fro safe to toss up.

  2. RCP said at 9:46 am on October 7th, 2010:

    I checked right now and it’s under the Likely Dem column, moved from Safe Dem… Only NJ3 appears as toss up

  3. Corey said at 12:30 pm on October 7th, 2010:

    All three races started at safe dem and Mayor Little’s ony moved back there as RCP takes into account the APP’s results as RCP is an aggregator not a pollster. Funny how one story can move a race on the RCP board and I am sure MR Murray was not attempting to get the race moved on the RCP board and it was a completely honest mistake as the news media on average continues to donate to Democrat candidates over republicans at a rate of 65% to 35%