“Patrick Murray needs to go back to school”

~ Governor Chris Christie on NJ101.5’s Ask the Governor, September 29, 2010

Monmouth University’s CD-6 poll has math errors!

By Art Gallagher

Turns out that Governor Christie was right about Patrick. Not just because Murray polled non-voters in his approval poll of the governor. Murray’s math is wrong in the CD-6 poll he released on Tuesday.

As much as I have enjoyed the kudos I have received since Murray said he revised his numbers based on upon my assumptions, I don’t fully deserve them. I challenged Murray’s assumptions about the demographics of the district. It never occurred to me to check his arithmetic.

Fortunately, it did occur to an MMM reader, Bill Wolstromer of Colts Neck.

Refer to Murray’s numbers on page 2 of his press release.

Compare Murray’s math to Wolstromer’s email to Murray:

From: wolstromer AT aol.com
To: pdmurray At monmouth.edu
Sent: Thu, Oct 7, 2010 2:48 pm

Doing the math, Murray’s original poll release should have announced a 9% margin between Frank Pallone and Anna Little. Not the 12% margin that was announced.  That’s a 25% difference.

Murray has yet to respond to Wolstromer’s email, or to my phone call this morning seeking comment or clarification.

Murrary owes an explanation to the media and the people of New Jersey who have come to rely upon him as a credible pollster.

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Murray re-crunches his numbers. Pallone’s lead slips to 9%

Patrick Murray, the Executive Director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, told MoreMonmouthMusings that he re-ran the numbers of his October 5 poll using the assumptions we used in analysing his numbers.

Murray said,”your assumptions are as good as mine, and this is a very volatile electorate.”

Based on his revised analysis, Murray says that Frank Pallone leads Anna Little in NJ-6 by 51%-42%, a 9 point margin.  That’s 3 points closer than his original analysis and 24 points closer than the All Phor Pallone newspaper’s analysis of the poll.

Murray also said that the list his used from Aristotle Inc. has approximately half of all registered voters in CD-6 as “likely voters” based on a 2 or the last four election vote as the standard.  That makes a lot more sense than to 60,053 two of four number that was reported to MMM from the GOP’s records of voting history.

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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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Musings on the Monmouth University CD-6 Poll

By Art Gallagher

Last month on the NJ 101.5 “Ask the Governor” hour, Governor Christie said that Patrick Murray needs to go back to school.  Murray predicted that Jon Corzine would be narrowly reelected last year.   Given the Governor’s remarks, Murray’s spotty history, and given the pork that Frank Pallone has bestowed on Monmouth University lately, I figured I take a critical look at the CD-6 poll released today.

Murray said that Anna Little leads among Independents by 13%,yet is losing by 12%.  Given my understanding the of the sixth district, my gut instinct was that that the race should be even closer.

Murray polled 643 “likely voters” between October 2 and 5. 53% registered Democrats, 23% Republicans and 24% Independent, according to his press release.

The actual registration make up of the district is 38% Democrat, 15% Republican and 48% Independent, as of August 25, according to Labelsandlists.com

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.

Of the 50, 463 registered Republicans in the district, 13, 744  voted in the primary last June. 38,266 voted in last year’s general election when we elected Governor Christie. 32, 086 voted in the 2006 mid-term election.

Of the 160,334 undeclared voters, 47,750 (30%) voted in last year’s gubernatorial election.  29,758 (18%) voted in the 2006 mid-term.

Of the 122,722 registered Democrats, 78,533 (64%) voted in 2009 and 69,449 (57%) voted in the 2006 mid-term.

Given these numbers, Murray’s “random sample” seems flawed.

Using these numbers and Murray’s margins, MMM makes the following analytical but scientifically flawed assessment of the CD -6 race:

MMM predicts that Republican turnout in the district will be slightly stronger than last years gubernatorial election turnout of 76%.  Republicans are motivated and the Tea Party ground game will get them out.  Look for a 78% turnout with 83% of that vote (Murray’s margin) going to Anna Little.  That’s 32,670 votes for Little, 5117 votes for Pallone (Murray says that Pallone will get 13% of the Republican vote).

MMM predicts that the Independent, or undeclared, turnout will slightly weaker than last years turnout, but much stronger than the 2006 mid-term. Call it 28%, or 44,894 votes. Murray says that 51% of Independents are for Little, 38% for Pallone, and 11% undecided.  Somebody smart recently said that undecideds usually break against the incumbent.  I’m giving Little 8% of the undecided Independents and Pallone 3%.  That comes to 26,487 votes for Little, 18,407 for Pallone.

MMM predicts a low turnout among registered Democrats in the district. 64% of Democrats came out to vote in the gubernatorial election last year and Christie still won the district.  It is a safe bet that many of those D’s came out to vote against the supremely unpopular Jon Corzine.  Frank Pallone does not spur the passion, pro or con, that Jon Corzine did.  The 2006 mid-term was a big Democratic anti-war, anti Bush year.  It was also a U.S. Senate year with Robert Menendez facing off against Tom Kean, Jr on the top of the ballot.  69,449 D’s voted in CD-6 in 2006.  51,462 voted in 2007 when the state legislature was at the top of the ticket.  Those are the hard core voters. With no  Senate race on the top of the ticket and without strong negative motivation ( the Iraq war and Bush), MMM predicts that only 58,000 D’s will come out to vote on November 2 in CD-6.  Using Murray’s margins, 89% will vote for Frank Pallone, 51,620, 8% will vote for Anna Little, 4,640.  Murray’s 3% undecided D’s will stay home.

Given all of the above, MMM has Pallone winning by 11,347 of 138,941 votes cast.  An 8% margin, with 27 days to go.

Much has been made of Frank Pallone’s huge financial advantage over Anna Little.  Pallone has $4 million.  Little has $200K and might raise another $200K in the next few weeks.  But there have been no signs that Pallone is spending his war chest.  Is the money gap significant if Pallone doesn’t spend on this race and keeps hording his cash for his planned U.S. Senate race?  It is to the extent that his money keeps potential Little donors holding on to theirs.

Little can close that gap by winning back the majority of the GOP voters leaning towards Pallone.  I find Murray’s margin of 13% of GOP voters going for Pallone hard to believe.  If Little whittles that down to 3% and wins most of the GOP undecided voters, she picks up 7065 votes.

She will then need 4,282 more Independents and 1 Democrat to win, recounts and voter irregularities in New Brunswick not withstanding.

In order to do that, Little, the GOP and the Tea Party need to increase the Independent turnout to about 35%.  If that happens, Little wins.

If Little had $1 million for media buys, this wouldn’t even be a race.  Murray says that 45% of the voters have no opinion of her, yet she is losing in his poll, by only 12%.  Those are terrible numbers for Frank Pallone.

Little can still win this race.  All it will take is another $200-300K and another 100 volunteers on the ground.  Click here and make it so.

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Monmouth Univeristy Poll: Pallone Leads Little 53%-41%

A Monmouth University Poll released today gives Congressman Frank Pallone a 53%-41% lead over Highlands Mayor Anna Little in the race for the NJ-6 congressional seat.  6% of likely voters are undecided according to the poll.

“A 12 point lead may look comfortable, but not when you consider the fact that Pallone regularly wins reelection by more than 30 points,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “District demographics are the key to this race. Little does well in independent-minded parts of the district. The question is whether it will be enough to overcome the built-in Democratic advantage here.”

Pallone and Little are basically tied 49% to 47% in the Monmouth County half of the district, but Pallone has a sizable 58% to 33% lead in the other half, which includes urban strongholds in Middlesex and Union counties.

Little actually leads by 51% to 38% among self-identified independent voters in this district, but, so far, it is not enough to overcome the Democrats more than 2-to-1 registration edge over Republicans in New Jersey’s 6th.

Congressman Frank Pallone’s job performance rating among likely voters in his district stands at 46% approve to 36% disapprove. He also garners personal ratings of 48% favorable to 32% unfavorable.

By comparison, 33% of voters give Little a favorable rating and 22% are unfavorable, with nearly half

(45%) offering no opinion on the Highlands Borough Mayor.

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