James Wensits, writing for the South Bend Tribune, has a story reporting that a Republican polling outfit by the name of Mercury Public Affairs claims that Chocola has a 5% lead over Donnelly, specifically, their numbers have Chocola up 45.5% versus 40.5% with 13.9% undecided. The sample included 39.7% Republicans, 37% Democrats, and 18.2% independent. (Which, out of a sample of 300 people, means 119 Republicans, 111 Democrats, and 70 independents.)
This contrasts with the poll numbers in another story written by Mr. Wensits featuring the WSBT/South Bend Tribune poll (conducted by Research 2000 of Rockville Maryland) sampling 400 likely voters, showing Donnelly ahead 50% to 42% with 8% undecided and a 5% margin of error.
Both pollsters “stand by their numbers.” I didn’t see the break down of voter affiliation in the South Bend Tribune poll. In any case, if conventional wisdom holds up, Chocola is in some trouble even with his poll numbers. He’s below 50% approval and there are 13% undecideds. The conventional wisdom is that undecideds typically break significantly toward the challenger.
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