Public Policy Polling has released their latest telephone poll of North Carolina voters today, including Bob Barr against both Clinton/McCain and Obama/McCain matchups, and Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Michael Munger against his major-party opponents. Some interesting tidbits from the cross-tabulated data:
- Barr gains more support from Democrats than Republicans in an Obama/McCain matchup, but loses 3% of independents that would vote for him against Hillary/McCain.
- In a Hillary McCain matchup, Barr has 3 times as much support from African-Americans and “others” than he does from whites.
- Munger takes a whopping 15% of independents polled, but his support among Democrats and Republicans is within the poll’s margin of error.
Ballot-Access News summarized the presidential matchups here.
If you look at the link to the poll, you can see the full questionnaire and methodology. The only thing that’s really questionable is:
“If the candidates for President were Libertarian
Bob Barr, Republican John McCain, and
Democrat Barack Obama, who would you vote
for? If for Bob Barr, press 2. If for John McCain,
press 2. If for Barack Obama, press 3. If you’re
undecided, press 4.”
But in my experience, that’s too basic an error for quality control to miss, and if intentional wouldn’t have been published in unaltered form. Must be a typo in the release draft.
As third party enthusiasts we need to be anti-polls UNLESS they are in our favor !
One thing I remember from my college PoliSci classes and my liberal Democratic Prof., Polls are BULLSXXX. They can be conducted in such away to say anything the pollster wishes them to say. WHO is paying the pollster ?!? It matters.
I have since come to another realization.
They are used to keep the powers that be in power ! Don’t ever forget it…
I’m surprised he only loses an additional 3% of independents.