The stats for the previous poll need to be fixed. You posted the same stats for both polls.

That said... I think we all knew this was coming once Merkley turned his attention to getting his name ID up with ads.

The question I have is: will this trigger Novick's attack ad?

Fixed.

It's not surprising that after putting a ton of ads on TV Merkley would be better known than he was a month ago. Steve went back on TV a week later than Jeff started on TV, so I'm sure that was a factor too. They'll both be on TV from now on.

Should be a fun 19 days!

Here's another, much less partisan question:

How much can either of these polls really tell us about where any of the candidates were at those points in time if less than half of those surveyed were deemed likely to actually vote on this race by SurveyUSA's own analysis?

I suspect that the stats in both are ballpark accurate. But I'm as skeptical about getting overly hot and bothered by Merkley's surge in the new one than I was about Novick's showing in the first one.

I assume Canter will dismiss this poll as illegitimate too? :) After all, Candy Neville has essentially the same support as before, give or take the margin.

The buys are certainly having some effect, but it's interesting that this poll is much less youth-skewed than the previous one. It'd be a stone cold shock if Oregon's youth vote didn't do what every other state's has--double, sometimes triple from 2004. Those new Obama registrants, mostly youth skewed, right? And Novick leads in this poll by 24 in that group. Merkley actually tripled his support--to 11%.

Who ever said it was a walk? I heard a lot of people saying Novick's ahead, and asking how is it that the guy with the advantages has to be playing catch up. Novick's ahead, and Merkley's playing catch up (and is indeed catching up).

The Patriots put up the TD midway through the fourth quarter, and add the extra point. It's Hosftra by 2!

Note on timing; the 28th through the 30th is right around the time Steve amped up his buy and swept the Portland general papers. Next week would have been better to pick up any effect from that, but there it is. You don't get to choose when they poll.

Merkley owned the airwaves the last three weeks. He's about to share the stage with a bunch of other folks in the last three. Can't wait to see what happens.

I saw the immigration thing too--I assume they're reacting to the DL thing?

I think Novick gets the old cranks, Merkley the more sedate. :)

Let's boil it down: Novick's A1 worry is women; Merkley's is young people. I think both were probably a little undersold in this poll.

As for the rest of the state, Steve just picked up the East Oregonian's endorsement, while in an openly acknowledged split decision, Jeff gets the Salem Statesman-Journal.

I think those are some rather reckless and unfounded positions, Peter. As 18yearold points out, if anything the undecideds are moving proportionally more to Merkley the last three weeks.

If a great resume made a great candidate, both Bob Kerrey and John Kerry would have been Presidents of the United States.

Stinky Vase,

Jeff Merkley campaigned hard for Democrats, and spoke at house parties and other events with a great deal of expertise and enthusiasm for a Democratic takeover. Of course it was a group effort, but there is no reasonable case to be made that Merkley wasn't an enormously important part of the process. He articulated a vision of what could be accomplished with a Democratic majority, which made Dem. candidates more electable; then, he delivered.

That may not be enough to make you cast a ballot for him, but it is a point you'd do well to acknowledge.

Look, I've gotten used to people disliking Merkley for various reasons -- but let's not go pretending that his involvement wasn't critical in 2006.

What happened in Oregon in 2006 was NOT a foregone conclusion.

Since 1982, Oregon House Democrats had never had a net-gain of even a single seat in a non-presidential year. Not even in the very strong years of 1990 and 1998.

Since 1974, Oregon House Democrats had never had a net-gain of more than three seats in any election.

In 2006, a nonpresidential year, we had a net-gain of FOUR seats -- historic on both scores. To be sure, part of the success is owed to the national tide.

But let's also be honest: Part of it was because Jeff Merkley and his team recruited great candidates and mobilized hundreds of Oregonians from across the state to work on their behalf.

Jean Cowan beat Alan Brown, the tire dealer to everyone on the South Coast. Chris Edwards beat Debbie Farr, and even just three weeks out, I had locals telling me that "It's too bad; everybody loves the Farrs." Brian Clem beat Billy Dalto, and yes, in retrospect, it looked easy. But Clem worked very, very hard to make it look very, very easy. And David Edwards won the open seat in Hillsboro; an area held by Republicans for decades.

Full disclosure: My firm manages the websites for the House Democrats, Jeff Merkley, Chris Edwards, and Brian Clem. In 2006, we managed Jean Cowan's, too. I speak only for myself.

And he didn't just speak at house parties. In addition to recruiting the candidates, he organized the "Roadmap for Oregon" policy agenda (which was critical), led the fundraising effort, managed the staff and consultants, marshaled huge non-money resources, and made it happen.

Yes, it was a favorable year - but without all his hard work, and more importantly his strategic leadership, we could EASILY have only picked up one, two, or three seats... which was the conventional wisdom right up to election day.

Posted by: Stephanie V | May 1, 2008 10:59:10 PM If a great resume made a great candidate, both Bob Kerrey and John Kerry would have been Presidents of the United States.

True enough. And by the same token, if being a sharp-tongued rhetorical bomb-thrower made a great candidate then Al Sharpton and Ron Paul would have been Presidents of the United States.

Bottom line: For every way that you try to dismiss Merkley's creds as irrelevant to the choice facing Oregonians, there are just as many ways to dismiss Novick's creds as irrelevant to the choice facing Oregonians.

If Novick wins the primary, Smith will win re-election. It's just that simple.

First, I have to say that calling a 30-28 lead a "tie" is wrong. "Close" or "in tight race" are true, but "tied" is inaccurate. It's true, given the margin of error, that Merkley may be winning. That doesn't mean it's tied, though, it means that Novick could be leading by as many as six, or Merkley could be leading by as many as two.

Or, this could be the one-in-20 polls that is off by more than the margin of error (these are done with 95% accuracy). But regardless, I'd rather be the candidate up 30-28 than the candidate down 30-28.

Novick picked up the Portland Tribune's endorsement this morning. One of their core questions is who is going to actually provide voters with a contrast to Smith in November. Maybe that's not the right question, or the only right question, but if it is, the answer is clear.

We know Gordon's doing his soft-focus independent voice act again, and will attack either Novick or Merkley as being pro-tax, big spending liberals.

Who's best able to pierce that narrative? My money's on Novick.

Wow, does that make the newspaper race 7-3 in Steve's favor?

<h2>Steve</h2>

The Oregonian East Oregonian Medford Mail Tribune Willamette Week Portland Mercury Portland Tribune Ashland Daily Tidings

<h2>Jeff</h2>

Salem Statesman-Journal Bend Bulletin Eugene Register-Guard

Am I missing any major papers?

Kevin, the Sharpton and Paul crack is sheer political hackery. Paul is a loon and Sharpton is demagogue or at minimum made his name that way and will never live it down. Neither of them have "sharp tongue" as their primary attribute when people think of them.

While I don't agree with people who have decided that Steve's "sharp tongue" is too much of liability, I respect that opinion and see holding it as a reasonable basis to decide a boat.

But Steve Novick is neither a loon nor a demagogue, and his "sharp tongue" issues, such as they are, do not make him anything like Paul or Sharpton.

This really is a smear. And a stupid, transparent one at that. It is simply an untrue, unfair comparison.

You should take it back. FWIW, while I have seen your zeal for Jeff as detracting at times from your thoughtfulness, it has not caused me to lose respect for you, just for the specific expressions in question, such as your refusal to answer a direct question from me to turn it to unrelated talking points on a different thread. That's fairly common. But if you stick with this line, it will cause me to lose respect for you. I may not be the only one.

Nor an unreasonable basis on which to decide a vote, either ;->.

evan (and everyone), the MoE is applied to each data point, not the gap. So the try range is Novick +10 (34-24) to Merkley +6 (32-26). Probability wise, that means about a 60% chance Novick is really ahead.

Oh, and for the same reason Novick is "ahead" but it's really tied, Merkley is "ahead" with women...but it's also really tied. Anything under 8 points is potentially not a real lead.

Nobody's mentioned so far that looking at the overall number comparison between now and three weeks ago:

Novick has improved his position by +7

Merkley has improved his position by +17

Again, this is over a three week period, and we've got about three more weeks 'til the twentieth.

I like the math...........

One issue with landline polls is the way they underrepresent young voters, who often have only mobile phones, and eschew landlines completely.

Considering Steve's prodigious strength among young voters, and the number of young voters registered and energized to vote for Barack Obama this time around, I think that a 30-28 lead in a poll like this is a very comfortable place to be, two and a half weeks out from election day. It strikes me that Steve is ideally situated to take electoral advantage of the Obama-Clinton contest in Oregon in a way no one else is.

And yes, I completely agree with LT about this: Democratic women obviously are not a monolithic voting bloc in primaries. It surprises me that Jeff is doing so much better among women, frankly, unless it has something to do with the way he regularly repeats his mantra about protecting a woman's right to choose. Steve also supports abortion rights, of course, but does not dwell on that position in his ads or public appearances.

The women I know are pretty much all supporting Steve. The comment I hear from them most often is, "I LOVE HIM!"

%^>

Fascinating numbers. I would love to know more about the methodology, because it's really hard to know what "650 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the 05/20/08 Democratic Primary." Really, how?

Oh well, grist for the mill. And Merkleyites like me can exhale a bit.

Posted by: Chris Lowe | May 2, 2008 9:32:06 AM

Chris,

Not only did you miss the point of my comment, but you actually demonstrated WHY I replied to Stephanie the way I did.

Don't you think that I could have taken issue with Stephanie's lame analogy on a variety of points just as you took issue with my reply on a variety of points?

You helped me demonstrate the inherently demagogic nature of forced analogies. They invite knee-jerk reactions which end up being every bit as much a part of the problem as the demagogic analogies. The next thing you know everyone is involved in a STUPID spitwad fight.

Don't you think we've had more than enough of those kinds of exchanges here?

And yes, I'll freely confess to having started more than my share of spitwad fights.

Now, if you made it this far and still think I deserve to lose your respect for trying to short-circuit another spitwad fight before it gets out of hand then I gotta say in all blunt honesty that your respect isn't worth having and I wouldn't lose a nanosecond of sleep over the loss.

TJ - thanks for the clarification about the MoE - it's something I've known in the past but wasn't thinking through.

That's what I get for blogging before coffee!

The media seem to have gone from ignoring MoE and polling error to misinterpreting it; i.e. calling things within the MoE a "statistical tie" instead of recognizing simply that things seem to be close and the leader may be the other person.

jeff, don't quote me but I think they do reg voters who rate their likelihood at 9 or 10 on a 10 point scale.

One thing that really seems off but who can say: Obama 49-46 in Portland? Come on now. That's an awful lot of hidden Hillary people!

ah, and my point relative to this thread is that if they're undercounting Portland's true O advantage (which a quick tour of yard signs and campaign offices would seem to support), there's a pretty good chance they're undercounting Novick votes too.

Don't you think that I could have taken issue with Stephanie's lame analogy on a variety of points just as you took issue with my reply on a variety of points?

Hardly lame, although you may disagree. Both Bob Kerrey and John Kerry are good men who would have been pretty good Presidents, and had great resumes, but they faltered because they were not dynamic, engaging candidates. With all due respect, that's how I see Jeff Merkley. The difference is that Kerry got nominated, which I don't think Merkley will.

As both a Democrat from Texas as well as a member of the Gun Owners Caucus, I agree with Bert.

Kevin,

You are quite right, I missed the point of your comment. Now that you point it out, I can accept that was your point.

However, I don't think you made it very well, at least in an e-mail/blog context. If I'd heard you speak it I'd have caught the sarcasm.

Maybe I'm just a bad reader, but then again, when I've taught writing, and been an editor, it has been my view that the onus in understanding lies heavily on the writer. That's also what I was taught.

But even accepting for the sake of argument that Stephanie's analogy was lame, it was neither as far off base as yours, and it contained no smear factor at all, as yours did, or at least was legitimately open to such reading, IMO.

So while likewise, I'll accept that your motive was to avoid another spitwad fight, I'd politely suggest that neither your chosen method (sarcasm) nor its execution (poorly comparable response analogies with a tinge of real or potential smear factor) is well calculated to achieve that end. As you say, you have started your share. As a result, as a writer you probably should take into account that regular readers here may be predisposed to interpret what you write in that context, even if in error.

But by all means let's try to avoid spitwad fights. My response honestly came, out of whatever combination of your problematic writing and my poor reading, from perceiving you as trying to start one, not stop one.

A note on methodology.

One thing that really seems off but who can say: Obama 49-46 in Portland? Come on now. That's an awful lot of hidden Hillary people!

The biggest difficulty pollsters have is projecting who will show up to vote. They talk to 650 people, then weight the responses to arrive at what they imagine will be a representative sample of the actual voters. Did they weight older voters more in Portland? Why? That's why seeing the methodology is valuable. Otherwise, it's not a whole lot more valuable as a predictor than BlueOregon's straw poll. (I overstate, but you get the point.)

That's a fair critique, Chris. I did do it sarcastically.

Stephanie: The difference is that Kerry got nominated, which I don't think Merkley will.

Fine. Have it your way.

Now that you've singled out Kerry as the primary focus of your analogy I'll point out a bigger reason why you should have thought it out a lot more before hitting the "post" button.

Using your own analogy we all know that if Merkley = Kerry then Novick = Bush.

I'm tellin' ya, Stephanie, that Kool-Aid will seriously rot your mind. I tried to do an intervention and get you to see the folly of what you thought was rational. But you clearly aren't ready to stop drinking the Kool-Aid. And I have been kicking around 12-Step groups for enough years to know that trying to talk sense to an intoxicated person is a monumental waste of everyone's time.

PS: Trust me Stephanie, you don't want to continue this analogy. Let's just say that I see your oft-cited diary at L.O. fitting very well into your own analogy.

No, Kevin. Smith = Bush in my analogy. This is a primary. Remember? I know you are new to the Democratic Party so perhaps a reminder is needed.

I mentioned in an earlier thread that determining who "likely voters" are will likely be difficult in this election.

We've seen the numbers for new registrants, is there data available about what how the new registrants are broken down in terms of demographics?

I'm guessing that no matter who they are, demographically, if they went through the trouble of reregistering this late in the game, they're going to vote.

LOL - okaaaaaay... it's significantly more forced analogy than I'd first suspected.

Kerry destroyed his competition in the 2004 Primary and did it with a winning combination of aggressivity, humor and charm. The Kerry who ran the second half of the '04 General was effectively a different person.

Do I really need to track down dozens of your own past comments about Merkley to demonstrate further how fundamentally inconsistent this new analogy is with everything you've been saying for months? Heck, I could find comments by you just from today alone which gut this forced analogy you're trying to foist upon us.

ROFL - you are too funny, Stephanie.

LT

You wrote: "Seems to me that the debate boils down to this: Are there Democrats who see Novick as dynamic but not necessarily engaging?

Put another way, does every registered Democrat value acerbic "standing up for principle" over diplomatic language and elective office experience?"

Yes there are such Democrats. No, not every registered Democrat makes the value comparison you state.

But that is not really what the debate boils down to, it is another of your all-or-nothing straw men.

The debate boils down to how many Democrats see Novick that way, or see him as dynamic and engaging, vs. how many Democrats see Jeff Merkley in the positively or negatively weighted versions of roughly shared views of his characteristics.

If the criterion for nomination were that "every registered Democrat" must value everything about the nominee, we'd never nominate anyone.

If Jeff gets the nomination, not "every registered Democrat" will take your view of him.

But that's o.k. What's more important, given how close this is shaping up to be, is that we all consider taking deep breaths, and resolving that whatever our fears and doubts about the potential weaknesses vs. Smith of the candidate we favor less, we'll do our best for him anyway.

By which, LT, I mean that as a request, not a demand -- I'm not telling you you have to do anything, because I wouldn't say that to you or anyone else.

Clearly in addition it would be stupid and counterproductive in your case (and most others I expect). But I don't want to be misunderstood, nor accused of something I don't and wouldn't mean.

Because I would say that standing up for principle is a reason to vote for Steve Novick, but when I say that I'm not at all saying everyone has to find it a sufficient reason, among the many different aspects and reasons we all are considering about both candidates. So I get worried when you write that if I say it's a reason to vote for Steve, I'm trying to tell you what you must do. Because I'm not, and I wouldn't, any more than I think you're telling me what I must do when you tell me that diplomacy is a reason to vote for Jeff Merkley.

I disagree that Kerry won the primary on humor and charm. He won it because he had the bulk of the Democratic establishment behind him. He was just as stiff in the primary as he was the general. It was Dean that had the humor and the charm - which is why he was able to turn out such huge crowds and raise so much money from very small donations.

It was because of the way the Democratic establishment acted back in 2003 and 2004 that us Deaniacs worked hard to take over the Party all over the country - and at the DNC as well. That's why Dean has tried to be so very neutral in the presidential race, because of the DNC not doing a good job of that in 03-04.

I disagree that Kerry won the primary on humor and charm.

Serious question, Jenni: Do you understand what a StrawMan Fallacy is or what makes it a fallacy?

Or have I misunderstood your point here? Are you deliberately disagreeing with something nobody here said?

WTF Kevin...YOU just said it. And you're out of your brain. There was nothing charming or humorous about Kerry. He won because the media took down Dean and the party thought they needed a war hero with experience.

The Dems fucked themselves good that election. We're trying to prevent that mistake again, here in Oregon.

I don't think I need much of a response, since TJ and Miles pretty much said it all.

I think the big problem here is that people are being sarcastic or whatever, but aren't making that clear. Remember you're talking on a blog - we can't hear how you'd say it, expression you're making, etc.

Posted by: Jenni Simonis | May 2, 2008 4:04:57 PM I don't think I need much of a response, since TJ and Miles pretty much said it all.

So in other words you don't know how a StrawMan fallacy works. That TJ and Miles, who even quoted the proof of the StrawMan, didn't catch it doesn't surprise me at all. But I'm more than a little surprised that you didn't.

Perhaps I'm asking the wrong question. Let me try this from a different direction...

Here's a direct quote from Stephanie (4th comment to this post)

"It's not surprising that after putting a ton of ads on TV Merkley would be better known than he was a month ago."

Now, would I misrepresent what she said if I characterized it thusly:

"It's not surprising that Merkley would be better known than he was a month ago."

I arbitrarily removed part of it. Did that change the meaning of what she said?

No, it's just that the way you've been writing things lately, it's sometimes hard to tell what is a serious comment/opinion coming from you and what isn't.

The way it was written, it appeared you were saying that Kerry had humor and charm in the primary and not the general.

None of this matters.

verasoie said:

He's a great Dem, and people see that on the resume alone.

I pointed out that if having a great resume made a great candidate, Bob Kerrey and John Kerry would both have been President.

That is true. And Kevin can be all over me like a cheap suit but it's still true.

Neither of them became President, because they were weak candidates, even though they both had strong resumes including the phrase "Vietnam war hero."

Now, verasoie is entitled to believe that Merkley is a "great Dem" based on his resume, and while I'd say he's a good Dem, not great, I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over her characterization. But in this discussion we are talking about his properties as a candidate, and I think that (a) he is a weak candidate; and (b) his resume is not (and resumes generally are not) sufficient to make him a great candidate.

Neither of them became President, because they were weak candidates, even though they both had strong resumes including the phrase "Vietnam war hero."

Inconvenient Fact: John Kerry received more votes in 2004 than any other Democrat in any other presidential election in the history of the United States.

Not bad for a "weak candidate" with a strong resume, huh?

Oh, and I hesitate to even bring it up... but, in fact, both Rep. Tubbs (D-Ohio) and Sen. Boxer (D-Calif.) raised objections to the Ohio vote being certified. But those objections were voted down and the Ohio vote was certified. And, in fact, those 20 fraudulent Ohio electoral votes determined the winner.

It's interesting that Stephanie sets up George W. Bush, the guy who gamed the system, as the "strong" candidate. Is that some sort of weird Freudian slip?

We also saw unprecedented numbers of people voting in the 2004 election as compared to any previous election - almost 17 million more than the previous high (the 2000 election). In 2000, Al Gore received 50,996,582 votes. In 2004, John Kerry received 57,355,978. So Kerry saw a 12.47% increase in the number of people voting for a Democrat, yet the number of people voting increased by 15.83%.

Election....Turnout 2004........122,295,345 2000........105,586,274 1996.........96,456,345 1992........104,405,155 1988.........91,594,693 1984.........92,652,680 1980.........86,515,221 1976.........81,555,789 1972.........77,718,554 1968.........73,199,998 1964.........70,644,592 1960.........68,838,204

LT:

Reagan: 54,455,472 (58.8%) Mondale: 37,577,352 (40.6%)

There was 29,642,665 more votes in 2004 than in 1984. Kerry received 2,900,506 more votes than Reagan did.

Merkley's Oregonian profile newsworthy within a few hours of its printing.

Novick's Oregonian profile not.

I hate meta comments about how the comments suck but Ill make an exception because seriously this thread is horrible.

What is clear Merkley's adds are good and they are working.

What is also clear is that Novick's pull the plug ad isn't.

Furthermore, Women will out vote young people (maybe because half of young people are women).

and hey with another 3 weeks and 27% of the vote undecided, which just happens to be the same as Merkley and Novick's combined movement in the last three weeks. Without anything significant happening the trend lines seem likely to continue leading to a Merkley 45 Novick 37 win. Sounds good to me.

The absolute number comparisons are misleading. If Kerry had more than any previous Democrat it was just the size of the electorate. Bush beat him by several million in the popular vote -- if Kerry had won Ohio's electoral votes he would have been a deeper "minority" president than Bush in 2000.

need a pillow, brad? You must be sore after pulling such a big pile of nonsense out of your ass, without the aid of factual lubricant.

Nothing smarter than pretending a poll is a prediction of the future!

We're just trying to lure you into complacency with our disconnected naivete TJ.

Deep down we understand that a 17 point increase to a statistical tie in the same three weeks that Merkley starts his media campaign is just a wild coincindence.

But we count on your tender mercies and generosity of spirit to pick up the pieces after our starry eyed idealism drives us onto the rocks.

<hr/>

Wish I could stay for additional anally oriented bon mots from The Master but I've gotta go. Canvassing for Barack this AM.........

<hr/>