Sunday, May 3, 2009

Clarion-Ledger Poll Echoes Zata 3 Data: The "Anyone But Melton" Choices are Crisler and Harvey Johnson

There has been no small controversy about the "ZataPulse" polls on the Jackson mayoral race. Various blog posts (from mostly anonymous sources) claimed that the methodology employed by Zata 3 President Brad Chism rendered the results inaccurate and misleading.

Today, Chism's critics may be silenced. The Clarion-Ledger published the results of a poll conducted by the Southern Research Group. According to today's C-L story, the results are:

Crisler was the favorite of 15.5 percent of voters, while Johnson was the choice of 14.4 percent. Incumbent Mayor Frank Melton checked in with 11 percent and state Sen. John Horhn followed with 7 percent.

Former Jackson Police Chief Robert Johnson and Hinds County Tax Collector Eddie Fair rounded out the measurable end of the poll, with 3.4 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively. All other candidates came in with less than 1 percent.

As my post of April 28 disclosed, the ZataPulse results for April 24 were: Harvey Johnson 27%, Crisler 26%, Melton 19%, Horhn 11%, Fair 3%, Other Candidates 7%, Undecided 7%

The numbers are different, but the basic gist is the same: Former Mayor Johnson and Councilman Crisler have a decided edge in keeping incumbent Mayor Melton out of the second promary. Horhn and Robert Johnson sympathizers need to re-think their position -- taking votes away from Crisler or Harvey Johnson may have the result of allowing Melton to catch up with one of them. And in a second primary, anything can happen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you are a good attorney because you are ignorant about polling science.

Kingfish said...

dude, 40% undecided is a HUGE factor and the main point of the poll, NOT who leads and Chism's survey doesn't capture that.

Jim Craig said...

"Forty percent undecided" suggests to me that poll respondents who claim to be likely voters won't actually show up at the voting booth. It will be interesting to see what actually happens when the primary votes are counted tonight.