BOR March Presidential Tracking Poll Results

by: Burnt Orange Report

Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 01:54 PM CDT

The following poll results were commissioned by Burnt Orange Report and conducted by IVR Polls as explained here. Conducted 3/22/07 :: 502 past Dem primary voters - MOE = 4.4%

Notes from the pollster: For the time being, these polls will assume the primary will not move to February. As such, we will poll past primary voters. We'll change the model if the primary move to February becomes more certain.

Timing on the poll was interesting for two reasons. First, it was done the day of Elizabeth Edwards' news...the attention may have given John Edward's numbers a boost.

::March Poll Results::

1st Choice 1st+2nd Choice

Hillary Clinton 33% 51%

John Edwards 19% 26%

Barack Obama 18% 26%

Bill Richardson 6% 11%

Dennis Kucinich 2% 3%

Joe Biden 2% 4%

Chris Dodd 0% 1%

Mike Gravel 0% 0%

Undecided 20% 55%

::March Results Weighted by Traditional Regional Turnout::

	Weighted
Hillary Clinton	35%
John Edwards	20%
Barack Obama	15%
Bill Richardson	8%
Dennis Kucinich	4%
Joe Biden	3%
Chris Dodd	2%
Mike Gravel	0%
Undecided	22%

Notes from the pollster: Turnout is not even across the state. South Texas is strongly Democratic, and the winner of the Democratic primary for a local race has traditionally not faced a strong Republican opponent in November. The primary election is the race. Turnout is always heavy, while turnout in major metro areas is weak. In 2004, Dallas County had 4.5% turnout while Hidalgo County had 15.6% turnout.

Obama did well in most of the metro areas, leading in Dallas and Austin, and picking up mid 20's in Houston and San Antonio. But outside of the cities, he did not do well at all. In South Texas, he was a distant fourth behind Clinton, Edwards and Richardson. In West Texas, he tied with Kucinich.
If you weight his results with the general population, Obama is nipping at Clinton's heels. If you weight according to historical turnout, Clinton has a comfortable lead, with Edwards leading Obama by four points.

::Weighted Regional Breakdowns (higher MoE)::

Clinton Obama Edwards Richardson Kucinich Biden Dodd Undecided

San Antonio 40% 20% 18% 8% - 5% - 10%

DFW 30% 27% 17% 7% - - - 19%

Houston 42% 25% 12% 7% 3% 2% - 9%

East 28% 10% 27% 5% 1% 2% - 27%

West 29% 6% 20% 12% 6% - 2% 25%

South 50% 6% 11% 10% 4% 2% - 17%

Central 21% 24% 24% 2% 3% 3% - 23%

Statewide 35.3% 15.3% 19.5% 8.3% 3.8% 3.2% 1.9% 21.5%

Note: Bolded numbers indicate a candidate's strongest performance by region.

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BOR Initiating Monthly Presidential Tracking Poll

by: Karl-Thomas Musselman

Mon Mar 26, 2007 at 00:08 PM CDT

I am proud to announce that the editorial board of Burnt Orange Report has made a decision to commission a monthly Texas Democratic Presidential Primary Tracking Poll in conjunction with IVR Polls. This is an exciting development as Texas considers moving up it's primary this year, becoming a larger player in the nomination process.

We all know how rare it is to find regular, methodologically comparable polling in our state. We hope to fill that gap for the next 10 months, basing our polling questions off of goals outlined by MyDD. We will be releasing our March Tracking Poll shortly and are open to offers by traditional media outlets to parter with our monthly polling (contact Matt at matt@burntorangereport.com).

IVR Polls is run by Ralph Bordie. While relatively new to the polling industry, Ralph has a background in performing statistical and data analysis for litigation, where multi-million dollar settlements depended on his methodology withstanding the scrutiny of opposing experts. He has worked on a number of campaigns going back to 1980, and as son of a Texas Senate Parlimentarian, he was soaking up political 'inside baseball' for years before that.

IVR Polls is a division of Forensic Economics Data Consulting, Inc. Polls for the 2006 cycle were released under the FEDCI name. His polling for the 2006 Texas 10th Congressional race was accurate to within 1% point a week out from the November elections. More information on his polling techniques can be found here and is included in the extended entry below.

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