The Seattle Times and the SeattlePI.com reported on the new King-5 poll earlier today.
Their basic take away: Nickels wins the primary. He’s at 26 percent (2 points up from KING-5′s earlier poll). Jan Drago is closest at 14 percent (a point down.) The others. Not so much.
However, here’s some context worth noting.
SurveyUSA interviewed 1,050 adults from the city of Seattle 07/13/09 through 07/15/09. Of them, 943 identified themselves as being registered to vote. Of the registered voters, 507 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely to vote in the primary. The election will be conducted entirely by mail; ballots begin to be mailed on July 29. The last day to vote is 08/18/09. The top two candidates emerging from the primary will face each other in the 11/03/09 general election.
In other words, they used interviews from 53 percent of the registered voters. But the turnout in the primary will be closer to 30 percent.
The bigger pool (53 percent) skews the poll in favor of candidates with more name familiarity. As you go further into the voter file, you naturally get a less informed voter—53 percent of voters are less informed than the 30 percent who vote in primaries. (Off-year primaries!)
The voters in KING-5′s sample are not paying as much attention and have a higher likelihood of not knowing candidates like Michael McGinn and Joe Mallahan and James Donaldson.
I’d say this is why Jan Drago—on the council for two decades now—and Nickels, came out on top.
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Josh – I would wager a bet that regardless of how well informed the 30 percent are that are likely to vote have very little idea about any of the candidates other than Nickels and Drago. I consider myself a well informed voter and I haven’t seen/heard a thing about Mallahan (outside of the blogs) and have hear a little bit more about McGinn’s campaign. I’m waiting to hear more from Mallahan’s campaign in particular and until he tells me who he is and why he is running I will reluctanly cast my undecided ballot for Nickels. I think Mallahan can move through this primary, but he has to start communicating with voters. Voters will have their ballots in 10 days.
PS Can we stop talking about McGinn as a legitimate candidate? He has remained at 8 percent in these polls and hasn’t raised enough dollars to move through this primary. I also really hate the whole “Mike Bikes” theme as if bicyclists are a better group of people. Also, can someone explain to me how he has remained so hefty in spite of his biking habits?
Josh – There’s not exactly a straight line from the 53% of the poll respondents used for the poll to a 53% turnout in the primary. A likely voter is a likely voter. The question is how they determined what a likely voter is. Did they ask? Did they go to a voter file and pick out people who voted in the last 2 primaries? Answers to those questions would probably be more telling. They seem to say that they ask a question to determine if someone is going to be a likely voter. I’d say a better way is choosing a random sample based on vote history, which you can get for a few hundred bucks at most from Labels and Lists.
If you want to hear more about someone who used to work for Slade Gorton, great.
As for McGinn not being legit, it ain’t all about money. And I think McGinn has as much money as Drago. And Donaldson has zero money. Yes all three have polled better than moneybags Mallahan.
I guess you need to try to buy the election with your own money in order to be credible in your book?
Josh you are absolutely right about the sample being off, but your speculation that this hurts the lesser known candidates does not seem to be the case.
The sample is waaaay too young and too male for an August primary electorate, but even if you adjust the numbers based on what the subgroup proportions should be (which I did), the numbers do not really change (much less than a 1% change up or down for any candidate) because of the fairly consistent numbers across subgroups.
Put another way SUSA’s sample is not reflective of an August primary but lucky for them it doesn’t really make a difference IN THIS CASE.
@4 – Gregoire got her first job out of law school from Slade Gorton in the AG’s office. I don’t get what the big deal is about that. I’m pretty sure she’s not an R.
ins’t it accepted knowledge anytime an incumbent is below 45% they are super likely to lose?
Their percent is not increasable, the voters already know them.
Bottom line: these polls are a death knell for Nickels and Carr, two long term incumbents who aren’t close to 40%.
@7 I think that accepted knowledge is more applicable to high-profile statewide offices, like Governor or Senator. In local races, so many voters don’t pay attention the undecideds are very high in polls, keeping incumbent numbers low.
You’re suggesting 74% of primary voters are “undecided” on Nickels because they literally don’t know who “Greg Nickels” is?
@9 No, I’m suggesting they know who Greg Nickels is, but can’t tell you what he’s done or not done.
They’ll say, “well, I haven’t really looked in to the Mayor’s race yet. I know he’s gotten flak for the snow thing, and isn’t a former Sonic running? I just haven’t had a chance to do any research yet.”
If Mallahan actually spends his $250,000 and places it on cable news, the Mariners and some other zip code targeted cable and doesn’t waste too much of it on consultant mailings, they’re sent to the voters but only benefit consultants, he will take second place.
Keep pushing the shake up of SDOT and other dysfunctional departments. Support the tunnel if he must, but insist on a fixed price (design/build) contract. Insist that the funding be identified before commitment to the contract.
@11 you are crazy if you think you can in any way control cost overruns on a mega project like the tunnel. I point to the Oxford study that looked at big projects worldwide and found that 90% of them go over budget at an average of 30% over budget for each project.
According to State law, Seattle is responsible for 100% of those overruns.
Also a problem: Mallahan’s support of the tunnel and rejection of the Mercer project do not make sense – that is where the tunnel is supposed to exit. If you do one and not the other… we’ll have to come up with a name bigger than Mess to describe it.
The Mercer proposal was developed before the current iteration of the tunnel was proposed, and will likely need to be significantly reconfigured if the tunnel as now proposed goes forward (and either way, it’s a colossal waste of $200+ million dollars – which only covers the segment from I-5 to Dexter – the City still won’t own up to the full cost of the project if it extends past Seattle Center)
12. 90% go over budget by an average of 30% – does that mean 10% don’t go over budget? What are the numbers for design/build contracts.
@14
Do you really think the largest deep-bore tunnel ever built, right in the middle of a major city, will be in that 10%? Do you really think that a middle manager from a cell phone company is the magical leader that can prevent the systemic fraud and financial mismanagement that nearly always occurs on a project of this magnitude, particularly one using experimental technology?
Has anyone else been solicited by T-mobile? I am a customer and have gotten repeated texts and emails from the company regarding my support for Malahan, only I don’t. Is that ethical?
@16 I find that hard to believe. If it’s true, you should forward one of the “repeated” emails to the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.
@15 — @14 is talking about deisgn build, which means a fixed price and one firm for design + build. In reality you’ll get NO COMPANY willing to do this project for a fixed price we can stomach, it will be on the order of $6-9 billion I’d think. THEY KNOW the $4 billion project is fake, as you point out.
Mallahan is the only one with money and is a fresh face. McGinn — no traction. Drago — 16 years = change??? Mallahan has the bucks and the issues and we’re stuck with his coming out for the tunnel but by saying “design build only” he actually protects us from the risks you discuss and after election has an “out” on the tunnel.
#16 Exactly. If they get a real bid that doesn’t allow for change orders, they know will be necessary, or for conditions not anticipated in a Design/Bid/Build contract, it will be much higher than the price currently being touted.
All good points Josh. But in the final analysis unless the challengers figure out a way to get their names and platforms in front of voters other than those at forums then it is all about name familiarity and that’s all that matters. The poll stacks up almost exactly as one would expect it would if none of the candidates had engaged in any sort of mass communication and could only count on free media. Only two candidates apparently have the capacity to actually pay for media: Nickels and Mallahan. Does Mallahan have the ability to overtake Drago? We’ll see. I think this poll more or less describes the race. Don’t count on McGinn being there in the end. I also don’t think Donaldson can either even though laws is doing her best to get his name in the news. Whether we like it or not, people won’t vote for someone they don’t think they know and there aren’t enough forums and forum attendees to tip the balance in favor of the McGinns of the world.
Oops Number 18.
@10, your suggestion is that primary voters in an off off year DO know Nickels but DON’T have an opinion.
A subtle and very unlikely distinction.
For incumbents, “undecided” means “no.”
It;’s like marriage if after 8 years your spouse is undecided about you, well, that’s not a good sign!