{"id":22810,"date":"2010-10-26T07:58:44","date_gmt":"2010-10-26T13:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=22810"},"modified":"2010-10-26T10:30:52","modified_gmt":"2010-10-26T16:30:52","slug":"dueling-polls-have-martinez-leading-by-1-or-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/10\/dueling-polls-have-martinez-leading-by-1-or-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Dueling polls have Martinez leading by 1 or 8"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Susana Martinez (left, courtesy photo) and Diane Denish (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

With a week remaining before Election Day, dueling polls released by the gubernatorial candidates find that Republican Susana Martinez<\/a> is either leading Democrat Diane Denish<\/a> by one point, or by eight points.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s sparring over polls began when Denish Campaign Manager Oren Shur released an internal poll<\/a> that found that the race has tightened to a virtual tie.<\/p>\n

Martinez led 46 percent to 45 percent in the survey of 603 likely voters conducted from Oct. 20-24. The margin of error in the poll was plus or minus 4 percentage points.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into the final week of the campaign, the gap has closed,\u201d Shur wrote in an e-mail accompanying the poll memo. \u201c\u2026as Election Day approaches, we believe more New Mexicans will view Martinez as a typical Republican politician who will side with the big corporations, not their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Martinez campaign was quick to release its own recent internal polling<\/a> showing the Republican maintaining a sizeable lead.<\/p>\n

Martinez led 50 percent to 42 percent in the survey of 800 likely voters that was conducted at the same time as the Denish poll. The margin of error in Martinez\u2019s poll was plus or minus 3.48 percentage points.<\/p>\n

\u201cLieutenant Governor Diane Denish continues to rotate pollsters, releasing results from whichever gives her the most favorable \u2013 not necessarily accurate \u2013 number,\u201d Martinez Campaign Manager Ryan Cangiolosi said in a news release. \u201cDenish\u2019s recent release is nothing more than another dishonest attempt by a desperate politician to fool donors into investing in a failing campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other recent polls<\/h3>\n

The most recent independent poll of the race, released earlier this month, had Martinez leading by 12 points<\/a>. Except for Denish\u2019s internal polls, all recent polling \u2013 internal Martinez polls and independent polls \u2013 has shown Martinez leading by several points (click here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a> for recent polls showing Martinez ahead).<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t necessarily prove that Denish is wrong. But it means her pollsters are probably using different methodology than every other polling company that has recently surveyed of the race.<\/p>\n

Denish has released polls from two different Democratic polling companies in recent weeks that have painted a different picture of the race. Earlier this month, one of the polls had Martinez leading by 3 points<\/a> and another had her leading by 1 point<\/a>. Last month, an internal Denish poll had Martinez leading by 5 points<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But even as those polls have been released, Martinez\u2019s internal polls have continued to match with independent polling of the race, and the conventional wisdom is that Martinez has a significant lead.<\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s new poll<\/h3>\n

Much has been written lately about how polls can be skewed if they don\u2019t intentionally survey people on cell phones. Martinez\u2019s new poll, conducted by the GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies, included 100 cell phone interviews.<\/p>\n

Among the poll\u2019s key findings:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • \u201cIn an election where turnout will play a key role, Republicans are much more motivated to vote,\u201d the poll memo states. \u201cFully 69% of Republicans rate their interest in the election as a \u201810\u2019 compared to only 55% of Democrats on a ten-point election interest scale.\u201d That could help explain why more Republicans are voting early and absentee this year than they have in the past.<\/li>\n
  • Martinez continues to lead among independents, 55 percent to 31 percent.<\/li>\n
  • Among \u201chighest-interest\u201d voters, Martinez is ahead by 17 points, 56 percent to 39 percent.<\/li>\n
  • Some 55 percent of those surveyed said they view Martinez favorably, while 38 percent said they view her unfavorably. Only 45 percent of those surveyed said they view Denish favorably, while 49 percent said they view her unfavorably.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Denish\u2019s new poll<\/h3>\n

    Denish\u2019s new poll was conducted by the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. In the company\u2019s polling, Denish has been gaining on Martinez for weeks. Martinez led by 5 points on Aug. 15 and Sept. 15, by 3 points on Oct. 4, and by 1 point in the new poll.<\/p>\n

    The poll memo states that there has been \u201csignificant consolidation with self identifying Democrats who now support Denish 84-11 percent and Hispanic Democrats who now support Denish 83-11 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Shur said the tightening of the race is due to several factors:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • The campaign\u2019s recent TV and radio ads have attacked Martinez for supporting a tax exemption for out-of-state corporations. Shur said those ads are \u201cnot only resonating with persuadable voters, but also energizing the base.\u201d<\/li>\n
    • Denish delivered \u201ctwo strong TV debate performances in the past week,\u201d Shur wrote.<\/li>\n
    • Democrats are working hard to get people out to vote.<\/li>\n
    • Former President Bill Clinton\u2019s recent rally for Denish also \u201chelped energize the base,\u201d Shur wrote, adding that Denish has held more rallies and been more visible than Martinez in recent weeks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      The bottom line<\/h3>\n

      We\u2019ll get at least one more independent poll of the race \u2013 an Albuquerque Journal poll that will be released Sunday. Keep an eye out for it. And keep in mind that, to date, independent polls of the race match more closely with the results from Martinez\u2019s internal polls, not Denish\u2019s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      With a week remaining before Election Day, dueling polls released by the gubernatorial candidates find that Republican Susana Martinez is either leading Democrat Diane Denish by one point, or by eight points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-22810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}