Hirono Slams Civil Beat Poll Results — Again
TANAKA: Once again, it is disturbing to see the poll was conducted by a firm who has already done work for Ed Case this election. We are not inclined to take the results at face value and urge Civil Beat to be more transparent about who they polled and their potential conflicts of interest.
Levine: Civil Beat polled likely Democratic primary voters, as was made clear throughout the story. The full demographic breakdown of the survey sample will be released after we publish other articles based on the poll results. Civil Beat conducted the poll with assistance from Merriman River Group, which conducted a single poll for Case in August 2011, before he was a candidate, and no longer works with him. This is stated clearly in footnotes contained in today’s article. Civil Beat’s relationship with MRG pre-dates that company’s work with Case. Civil Beat has editorial control over the content of the survey and the data created from the survey. Nothing has changed since the last time Hirono’s campaign didn’t like the results of our independent poll and raised the same complaints.
TANAKA: Civil Beat does not disclose how many Republicans or Independents in the poll that it believes will vote in the Democratic primary. We believe that if this lead is in fact true, we are in great shape for this election.
Levine: The article states, “Thirty percent of self-identified Republicans said they intended to vote in the Democratic Party primary in August. Of the voters who plan to vote in that primary, 24 percent are self-identified independents.” Additional cross-tab information that will be released after all our poll articles are published shows that the Democratic primary electorate is 62 percent self-described Democrats, 24 percent self-described independents, and 9 percent self-described Republicans. Four percent of Democratic primary voters said they were not sure what party they belong to.
TANAKA: The Civil Beat poll also shows Ed Case winning among women – a finding that is inconsistent with any polling we have conducted in this election.
Levine: Today’s article did not include any mention of Case’s support among women, and Tanaka’s statement appears to be based on the cross-tabs found at the bottom. The Civil Beat Poll shows that 47 percent of women who are likely to vote in the Democratic primary said they’d vote for Case versus 45 percent who said they’d vote for Hirono. The gap is within the poll’s margin of error, so it would be more accurate to say that Case and Hirono are tied among women. Civil Beat cannot compare this finding to Hirono’s internal polls as the campaign has not released those polls to the public.
TANAKA: Finally, Civil Beat’s article about it’s own poll misreports it’s own findings. Contrary to what the article claims, Hirono in fact has a significant lead over Lingle among likely Democratic primary voters. In fact, the poll, if to be believed, shows 25% of likely primary voters that would chose Ed Case would cross over and vote for Republican Linda Lingle in a general election while Hirono retains 96% of Democratic primary voters. However we agree with Civil Beat that this finding is not something people should take seriously.
Levine: From today’s article: “Hirono holds an early 49 percent to 44 percent lead over Lingle, with 6 percent undecided. Case, by comparison, holds an early 52-36 lead with 12 percent undecided. Because 1,105 likely primary election voters were surveyed, the margin of error is +/- 2.9 percent.” These results come from our survey of all likely primary voters, not just those who said they’ll vote in the Democratic primary. We expect that some of the folks who vote in the Republican primary in August will also vote in the general election in November.
— Michael Levine
