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Monday, July 13, 2009

City Take It With a Boulder of Salt

Posted by Dominic Holden on Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 5:15 PM

A poll on the City Attorney's race found that incumbent Tom Carr is ahead of challenger Pete Holmes—23 percent to eight percent—but over two-thirds of all voters (69 percent) are undecided. These results are of little value because the polling firm, True Blue Innovations, only asked likely voters in the primary election. But the city attorney's race is up for a vote in the general election—which draws a younger, more progressive group than the primary. If you gathered the primary voters of Seattle in a room, it would look like a nursing home.

Theoretically, however, one could glean from this poll that Carr doesn't have strong support from older, more conservative voters (or you'd see larger numbers for him here). This could be good for Holmes (a relative unknown), who is resonating with a younger crowd that resents Carr's eight-year crusade against nightlife, pot, and low-level crimes. Those voters could come out for Holmes in the general election and push him past Carr.

Comments (10) RSS

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What's a "likely voter"?

The last off year election we had was back when you could physically vote at the polls.

Today's likely voter gets one choice - pay for a stamp and mail it in.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 13, 2009 at 5:26 PM

69% of voters is not only more than one third, it's more than two thirds. But yeah, boulder of salt. It would be more interesting if Carr had been identified as the incumbent, which will become a better known fact as the election approaches. And without Obama on the ballot, I'm skeptical that the "younger crowd that resents Carr's eight-year crusade..." will be voting in large numbers.

Posted by Yo. on July 13, 2009 at 5:59 PM

Dominic says:

"But the city attorney's race is up for a vote in the general election—which draws a younger, more progressive group than the primary."

What's your basis for that statement, Dominic? Can you back that up with some evidence?

Posted by ivan on July 13, 2009 at 7:36 PM

Ivan there is no doubt that the general will have a bigger turnout and most assuredly will be younger, but by how much?

Posted by abc on July 13, 2009 at 7:57 PM

I have been less than impressed with True Blue's polling. It seems to be rather poorly thought out and generally less than enlightening.

Posted by giffy on July 13, 2009 at 9:16 PM

Is the title a reference to Grandson of Jesus, Dominic? If it is, nice. Just sayin.

Posted by lunasea on July 13, 2009 at 10:57 PM

@3:

Dominic appears to be taking the conventional wisdom around Republican primaries and applying it to Democrats, and throwing in some age-oriented assumptions. Primaries attract the party faithful, which tend to be further to the right (R) and left (D) than the general electorate. And they also attract older voters (perhaps due to the party-faithful part). Dominic's assuming that progressives are young; don't vote in primaries; love pot; love loud clubs that deter dense residential development, and sympathize with hipsters who steal to buy from their dealer; that old people hate them; and that somehow the young progressives will outnumber the rest of the electorate in the general election. Sloppy/stoner logic.

Posted by Yo. on July 13, 2009 at 11:37 PM

@7:

Oh, not to mention the most notable fallacy I find in the Stranger - Cap Hill may be the most dense neighborhood in Seattle, but it is far from being home to the majority of Seattleites. There's a big difference between the two titles.

Posted by Yo. on July 13, 2009 at 11:55 PM

It sounds as though you believe this other guy to be an actual substantial improvement over Carr. I would like to hear more about that and why you think he's electable.

Posted by Luke Baggins