First, I just want to say (again) THANK YOU to the readership of Daily Kos who, back in 2013, supported the launch of Bold Blue Media Alliance (now Bold Blue Campaigns). I had a vision of how we could come together to support Democratic state and local candidates with grassroots funding and we have been doing exactly that ever since.
Obviously, I’ve got a bit of a heart for an underdog. And this congressional district — which happens to be my own — is one of them.
Despite the fact that Bold Blue Campaigns focuses heavily on state and local candidates, I care a lot about this district personally, having watched it be ignored by the national party in 2008 (after I bought a home there in 2007) and frustratingly (and unnecessarily) losing it to Adam Putnam. (It was FL13 back then).
This Spano/Carlson poll was independently funded. Neither Kristen Carlson nor the Democratic party are our clients. I personally paid for this poll with our own funds with only ONE OBJECTIVE: to get an accurate reading of voter sentiment in this targeted seat. For whatever reason there has been a dearth of public polling in this district. We think that is a mistake. We believe the district is winnable — and apparently others do as well. The district is part of the DCCC “Red to Blue” targeted seat list, and is listed by a variety of other ratings agencies such as 538 as competitive.
But I also ordered the poll because there’s a problem with polls these days. They are almost all spin. I call them PR polls. They’re not done to determine where a candidate actually sits in a race, but rather, to dominate the news cycle. I get it. And I’d even go so far as to say that strategically, there may be a place for that a certain junctures during the campaign cycle. But my company is not exclusively a polling company. We don’t just poll because that is what we get paid to do. We are campaign strategists, data analysts, consultants and campaign service providers. Our goal is always and only to help candidates WIN — or at least compete credibly in their campaigns. A campaign can’t do that with misleading and non-credible numbers.
Further complicating things this cycle in particular is that so much has happened politically since the last midterm in 2014. Pollsters weighting towards 2014 style models are probably underestimating Democratic strength this cycle. Many of them know this and have shifted more towards 2016 style models which can also be inaccurate, overestimating Democratic strength. The truth is likely somewhere in between. We just don’t know how new registrants and those who are seemingly now motivated by current events to vote in a midterm are going to vote — or even if they actually will at abnormally high levels (*more on this below).
Bottom line: many of the polls being published publicly are going to say whatever the pollster or campaign who hired them want them to say.
I and my team are am committed to NOT DOING THAT.
We have conducted this poll in FL-15. We have posted the crosstabs and details on scribd. We have been transparent. We have simply published what we found, both properly weighted and unweighted. I personally think it’s a hopeful result for Democratic partisans. The Democrat is within striking distance in a R+6 district. It’s an actual fight and one we can win in a state that is highly competitive this year.
I’d rather be seen as “the honest pollster” and have you be mad at me than conduct bullshit polls that make you feel good every day except on election night. Fellow Dems, we have serious work to do. Yes, we are a Democratic firm but we are not a “Democratic pollster”.
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*I am proud to announce that we are conducting a variety of additional polls in the coming weeks. In addition to several Florida state house races, a Florida statewide and several state legislative races in Georgia, we will be a conducting a poll in a Florida county where we will be seeking responses from new registrants and those “unlikely voters” who are always a wildcard. We know that youth registrations shot up after Parkland in Florida and several other states. We know that Trump women are losing their allegiance to him. We know that Latino and AAPI turnout could be higher than it typically has been for midterms. This is all probably good news for Democratic candidates but we can’t quantify it. Will these voters should up? How likely are they to vote? And let’s not make assumptions: who do they plan to vote for? Our poll will seek to quantify this and answer these questions. I don’t know what the results will be or whether they will be applicable more broadly than in the (carefully selected) county we chose to conduct the poll in. But I can assure you that the data we get will be whatever it is. It won’t be spin. It won’t be bullshit.
The stakes are too high to play games.
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You can support what we do at Bold Blue Campaigns by visiting our website and making a monthly or annual recurring contribution or a one-time, any amount contribution. State and local candidates could never afford the high dollar prices for the types of critical campaign services and support we provide. Your contribution offsets that and allows us to pay vendors and campaigns experts appropriately, while keeping costs low for state and local campaigns. We’re proud of what we do and of how we do it. Your support will also allow us to conduct more polls of competitive, but underpolled districts like GA-07 and WI-08 that are in play this election cycle, and in the cycles to come.
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