… In truth, when an election result hits “10 on the political Richter scale” of shock value, there usually isn’t just one reason for the outcome, but lots of them acting in concert. While surveying the wreckage, Cantor adviser John Murray acknowledged his boss’s loss amounted to “death by a […] Read more »
VA 7 C.D. Post-Primary Survey
… Knowing that our May 28 Republican primary voter poll was reflective of past Republican primary turnouts that were significantly smaller, we decided to conduct this study at our own expense to see which voters actually accounted for the much larger turnout in this year’s Republican primary. The sample that […] Read more »
Population Shifts Had Nothing to Do With Cantor’s Defeat
… But here’s one such theory, as described by a New York Times article published Sunday: Perhaps Cantor’s defeat — and the near-defeat of Republican Sen. Thad Cochran in Mississippi — has something to do with migration patterns. If more people are moving into areas where they are less familiar […] Read more »
Explaining Cantor’s errant poll
I’m going to defend the indefensible and attempt to explain the inexplicable. I’m unwilling to throw up my hands and blame statistics or incompetence for the failure of polls to foresee Rep. Eric Cantor’s primary defeat. Start, in Holmesian fashion, by eliminating the impossible. Those with a middle-school-level knowledge of […] Read more »
The Cantor Prediction Is Part of a Pattern: GOP Pollsters Stink
The last few years have regrettably made the phrase “Republican pollster” less a job title than a punch line. From the 2012 election, where many in the GOP were stunned by the Obama campaign’s victory, to the 2013 closer-than-expected Virginia gubernatorial race, all the way to the present, Republican polling […] Read more »
Why the GOP Still Struggles With Polling
… Eric’s Cantor’s shock defeat Tuesday is being blamed on any number of reasons. But among the seasoned Republican campaign operatives, the biggest internal culprit is seen as the majority leader’s longtime pollster, John McLaughlin, whose own survey of the Virginia race showed Cantor leading his opponent by 34 points. […] Read more »