Liberal pollster shows dead heat in Massachusetts

Over at Hot Air, Karl asks:

The new Boston Globe poll showing Democrat Martha Coakley beating Republican Scott Brown by 15-points in the race for Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, when contrasted with Public Policy Polling showing a dead heat, has people scratching their heads. So what’s up with that?

My usual caveat: polls suck.

But there’s something else to keep in mind, here: Public Policy Polling (PPP) is a heavily Democrat organization — they poll for a lot of very liberal groups.

That, in itself, isn’t enough to disregard their results — in fact, if anything, it lends more credibility to their Coakley-Brown poll. Surely no professional organization is so stupid as to believe a head-fake of this kind would be better for their own candidate.

But don’t forget, back in November, though, PPP came out with this:

The poll asked this question: “Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?” The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.

Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% – an outright majority – saying that ACORN stole it.

At the time, I was skeptical:

This is ridiculous. ACORN stole an election that Obama won by…what was it? Seven percentage points, nationally? Nearly 9.5 million votes. He won the Electoral College 365-173, and only three Obama states — Indiana, New Hampshire, and North Carolina — were won by fewer than 100,000 votes. Had those three gone the other way, Obama still would have won 335-203.

…There’s something wrong with this poll. There’s something wrong with the sample. I can believe some small number of people honestly believing this, but 52% of Republicans? Actual, real-life Republicans, who have jobs and families and read newspapers and who went to college?

We should always view polls with skepticism, but especially PPP polls.

On the other hand, maybe I should shut the hell up. Even if PPP’s poll on Coakley-Brown is wrong — an outlier, maybe, or maybe just a bad poll — the fact that Brown is closing the gap is an enormous positive for his campaign. Having a professional poll out there showing him tied is even better. It provides momentum, and more: it makes people believe he can win.

Sure, that might galvanize the other side to some extent. But it’ll galvanize Brown’s side, too. Rank-and-filers are more enthusiastic about supporting a winner. Donors are more likely to donate to a candidate with a chance.

So. Good. PPP should put out some more polls, if you ask me.

(The TrogloPundit)

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