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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

New Washington State Poll Numbers

posted by on October 21 at 17:40 PM

There’s a new Elway Poll out today and it has good news for Gov. Christine Gregoire (with continuing good news for Barack Obama).

Gregoire 51, Rossi 39

Obama 55, McCain 36

Perhaps the Red Scare should not be scaring Washington Democrats after all? Perhaps. But the report on the poll notes that its findings, as far as the governor’s race is concerned, are somewhat anomalous: “Other polls have the [Gregoire-Rossi] race closer.”

And, further on down the ticket, the poll shows Republicans still ahead in a couple of key contested races.

Attorney General: McKenna 48, Ladenburg 29.

Lands Commissioner: Sutherland 37, Goldmark 33.

RSS icon Comments

1

No political professionals seriously use Elway -- he is notoriously the worst pollster around! This is the guy who announced on the eve of I-695 in 1999 that it was going down 55-45, and it passed 56-44, and nobody knowledgeable in politics has taken him seriously since then.

If folks slack off on helping Gregoire because of this one encouraging poll (as he says, all the others have the Governor's race a dead heat), it will be disastrous.

Posted by Murgen | October 21, 2008 6:01 PM
2

Eli, your article began by saying one of the clear signals that Washington was an Obama state was that he defeated Hillary Clinton here in the caucuses. How so? After all, Obama is set to win a great many states he lost to Hillary. And McCain won the Washington caucuses too. I always thought that whole line of reasoning was a canard the Clinton camp was using to attract superdelegates. Not so?

Posted by elenchos | October 21, 2008 7:05 PM
3

This poll has Obama up by 20. In most other polls it's Obama by 10 in Washington state. Thus, shave off 10 points from Gregoire-Rossi and look what you get.....

Posted by mcbush | October 21, 2008 7:25 PM
4

Color me skeptical. Very skeptical.

These numbers are WAY off from all the other polling that has been done here. Either things have shifted significantly Greaoire's way recently, or this poll is full of shit. Given that nothing of significance has happened in our governor's race in the last couple weeks, I'm guessing the later.

Same for Obama. All the other polls done in WA in the last month show Obama with a lead of between 5-15 points. Now he's jumped to 19? Sure he has.

I hope like hell that Gregoire wins, but this poll looks like an outlier. I don't trust it at all.

Posted by Reverse Polarity | October 21, 2008 8:01 PM
5

I treated that poll like it was masturbatory fiction. It makes me erect, and I'd dearly love for it to be true, but true it is not.

And I don't understand how anyone could support Sutherland over Goldmark. Goldmark's bona fides make Doug look like a piker by comparison.

Posted by Ryan | October 21, 2008 9:27 PM
6

The Sutherland/Goldmark numbers are great news for Goldmark. Even if they are not quite right (see the comments about Elway's reliability), they indicate that Sutherland is below 50% and there are many undecideds (compared to the Attorney General race, for example). Those are strong predictors of a successful challenge.

Posted by Matthew | October 21, 2008 10:37 PM
7


Strangely, with each new announcement of Obama's campaign spending going up...so too his poll numbers.

Things that make...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Dtfi3VkiU

Posted by John Bailo | October 21, 2008 10:41 PM
8

Go Gregoire.

Obama should not be news in Washington state.

:rolleyes*:

*Note to web guy: when are you getting emotes around here?!?

Posted by Max Bell | October 21, 2008 10:59 PM
9

When Rob McKenna was on the King County Council he was one of the most conservative members around. He is firmly anti-choice. Do you really want an attorney general who doesn't recognize such a basic right?

While on the council, McKenna consistently voted against domestic partnerships for gays. He was anti-transit, anti-Seattle, and a roads lover of the first degree. He was so far to the right that the year he wrote the King County Budget as Budget Chair, his budget was rejected by a majority of the then Republican dominated council. They then hastily wrote a new budget. On almost every issue, McKenna led the far right.

Now Rob McKenna is burnishing his reputation by being a good government attorney general. His plan is to position himself for a run at governor in 2008 as a moderate carefully avoiding issues. This is the new Republican playbook--see Dino Rossi. Avoid any real discussion of your views on issues of the day in favor of carefully choreographed press "opportunities".

Make no mistake, Rob McKenna is a scary-ass, far right trojan horse motherfucker. John Ladenburg on the other hand is a former prosecutor, Pierce County Exec, and a very good Sound Transit chair. John is smart, a fighter, and one of the wittiest electeds around.

Posted by tiptoe tommy | October 21, 2008 11:24 PM
10

Three reasons to vote against Doug Sutherland:

1) Well documented sexual harassment case. The man is a pig.

2) He allowed clear cuts on steep slopes with minimal process that directly resulted in the flooding in Southwest Washington including I-5 and Chehelis/Centralia.

3) He has consistently favored allowing Glacier Northwest to strip mine their large sensitive shoreline property on Maury Island (part of Vashon for you Capitol Hill folks). This is bad for the island, bad for the Sound, bad for salmon, and makes a mockery of the environmental rules in this state. But money speaks and Sutherland jumps.

Goldmark is the real deal. An Eastern Washington rancher who understands environmental issues and ran strongly as a Democrat in the Fifth District.

http://www.petergoldmark.com

If you just vote for Obama and don't vote down the ballot you aren't serious about change. Obama can't do anything without an army of local progressives supporting him. Vote your whole ballot. It is always valid to skip judges since we don't get any real info about where they stand anyway.


Posted by tiptoe tommy | October 21, 2008 11:41 PM
11

Why is McKenna spending millions on ads, when Latenburg hasn't the money to run any that I can see?

And wtf is that thing living on the top of his head? (McKenna, not Latenburg) Dude looks like a Simpson's character...

Posted by michael strangeways | October 22, 2008 9:42 AM
12

McKenna always reminds me of Mr. Peabody's friend, Sherman on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. I know I am dating myself...

Posted by tiptoe tommy | October 22, 2008 10:08 AM

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