CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A new poll of the state Supreme Court race conducted for Democrat Menis Ketchum shows him with a significant lead over Republican Beth Walker - a very different result from a poll released last week that showed the two tied.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A new poll of the state Supreme Court race conducted for Democrat Menis Ketchum shows him with a significant lead over Republican Beth Walker - a very different result from a poll released last week that showed the two tied.
Ketchum, Walker and former Supreme Court Justice Margaret Workman, a Democrat, are running for two open Supreme Court seats.
Both polls show Workman in first place.
On Thursday, Walker issued a press release stating the current Supreme Court race is "very competitive" between her and Ketchum.
She based that on a poll conducted by Mark Blankenship, president of Mark Blankenship Enterprises in Charleston.
Blankenship, whose poll shows Ketchum leads Walker by a margin of 23 percent to 21 percent, called the race between those two an "absolute statistical dead heat."
Blankenship said no one paid him to conduct his political survey.
Another poll by Anzalone Liszt Research, a public opinion polling firm based in Washington, had different findings.
That poll, conducted in late August, shows Ketchum leading Walker by 13 points: 48 percent of respondents said they planned to vote for Ketchum, while 35 percent chose Walker.
Workman was backed by 57 percent of those polled. The numbers add up to more than 100 percent because people were asked to choose two candidates.
The startling difference between the two polls is apparently due to different polling methods.
Anzalone Liszt asked every respondent to name two choices for Supreme Court, while Blankenship did not.
Blankenship explained his method.
"I asked, 'If the Supreme Court race were today, who would you choose between candidates A, B and C? Who would you most likely vote for?'"
If the respondents volunteered a second choice, Blankenship added that to his tally. Otherwise, he recorded only one pick.
Asked why he did not routinely ask for second choices, Blankenship said, "I think that puts a little pressure on the respondents. It forces them, or leads them, to make a second choice when they might not want to.
"In a Supreme Court race, people often choose only one candidate out of two," Blankenship said.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. - A new poll of the state Supreme Court race conducted for Democrat Menis Ketchum shows him with a significant lead over Republican Beth Walker - a very different result from a poll released last week that showed the two tied.
Ketchum, Walker and former Supreme Court Justice Margaret Workman, a Democrat, are running for two open Supreme Court seats.
Both polls show Workman in first place.
On Thursday, Walker issued a press release stating the current Supreme Court race is "very competitive" between her and Ketchum.
She based that on a poll conducted by Mark Blankenship, president of Mark Blankenship Enterprises in Charleston.
Blankenship, whose poll shows Ketchum leads Walker by a margin of 23 percent to 21 percent, called the race between those two an "absolute statistical dead heat."
Blankenship said no one paid him to conduct his political survey.
Another poll by Anzalone Liszt Research, a public opinion polling firm based in Washington, had different findings.
That poll, conducted in late August, shows Ketchum leading Walker by 13 points: 48 percent of respondents said they planned to vote for Ketchum, while 35 percent chose Walker.
Workman was backed by 57 percent of those polled. The numbers add up to more than 100 percent because people were asked to choose two candidates.
The startling difference between the two polls is apparently due to different polling methods.
Anzalone Liszt asked every respondent to name two choices for Supreme Court, while Blankenship did not.
Blankenship explained his method.
"I asked, 'If the Supreme Court race were today, who would you choose between candidates A, B and C? Who would you most likely vote for?'"
If the respondents volunteered a second choice, Blankenship added that to his tally. Otherwise, he recorded only one pick.
Asked why he did not routinely ask for second choices, Blankenship said, "I think that puts a little pressure on the respondents. It forces them, or leads them, to make a second choice when they might not want to.
"In a Supreme Court race, people often choose only one candidate out of two," Blankenship said.
Larry Sabato, a nationally recognized poll analyst and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, questioned Blankenship's method.
"Just because you are getting more first-choice votes does not mean you will win an election where people get two choices," he said.
And since two Democrats are running for two open seats in this election, while only one Republican is running, it is more likely Democrats will cast two votes.
Pollster Jeff Liszt explained why Anzalone Liszt requested two choices.
"I believe it is important to ask for two choices. It is our general methodology to make sure the question we ask is as similar as possible to the way the person is actually going to vote," Liszt said.
"The second choice doesn't count less than the first choice. On Election Day, there is no difference between the first choice and the second choice."
Blankenship's survey polled 432 individuals. Of those respondents, 62 voluntarily added a second choice, bringing the total votes Blankenship analyzed to 494. Of that total, 123 individuals made no choice at all.
Ketchum did well among the 62 respondents that voluntarily offered second choices. Those votes included: 39 for Ketchum, 12 for Workman and 11 for Walker.
The Anzalone Liszt survey polled 600 people. Since all 600 were asked to make two choices, that firm's Supreme Court survey had 1,200 votes.
The first choices of those polled were: 33 percent for Workman, 25 percent for Ketchum, 22 percent for Walker, while 20 percent were undecided.
The second choices were: 24 percent for Workman, 23 percent for Ketchum and 13 percent for Walker, while 41 percent said they were undecided or would not vote for a second candidate.
Sabato said polls are of limited value in a race like this, where many voters aren't familiar with the candidates.
"Most people don't even know who is running," he said. "Polls may not even be useful. But those races can get controversial and they are often decided by [voter] turnout."
Sabato predicted, "In West Virginia, McCain will win the presidential race. Your incumbent governor [Joe Manchin] will be easily re-elected.
"But people ought to take polls of lower elective offices with a large grain of salt. Some voters will just skip the race.
"Others will decide how to vote when they are inside the booth. Looking at the lines behind them, some people get nervous and just want to get out of the booth," Sabato said.
Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 348-5164.
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And, by the way, thank you CALA for the free advertising for Ketchum on the Gazette internet page. Few people go beyond the headline. And even if they do, most people see your "information" as erroneous, misleading or just plain lies. Your bias reaks!