Tom Mullins
Tom Mullins, the Republican challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján this year, claimed today in a fundraising e-mail that a recent poll has him neck-and-neck with his opponent. But the way Mullins characterized the poll isn’t accurate.
Here’s what Mullins’ e-mail stated:
“The most recent Magellan poll has me in a dead heat (43 to 42 percent) with my opponent and as we continue to spread a positive message of smaller government, greater personal responsibility and common sense laws and regulations. Our support is growing daily.”
Mullins was referring to a recent poll by the GOP firm Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies. But the poll was about the governor’s race, not the 3rd Congressional District race. The poll didn’t specifically ask whether voters in the 3rd District would pick Luján or Mullins.
It did ask a general question about the 3rd District race: “If the election for U.S. Congress was being held today, and all you knew about the two candidates was that one was a Democrat, and the other was a Republican, for whom would you vote?”
In response to that question, 42.6 percent of people surveyed picked the Democrat, 42.2 percent picked the Republican and 15.2 percent were undecided.
That question was asked of a very small number of voters – 186. And there is a big difference between asking people whether they’ll vote for a Democrat or a Republican and asking whether they’ll vote for Luján or Mullins.
Still, the Magellan poll may be good news for Mullins. It surveyed 99 Democrats, 67 Republicans and 20 independents, and may indicate that a number of Democrats and independents in the left-leaning district are fed up with the Democratic Party.
But that doesn’t mean they are fed up with Luján or that they will actually vote for Mullins on Election Day. The poll didn’t ask them who they would vote for, so we don’t know.