TDP Chair Election- Poll of Delegates!

by: Karl-Thomas Musselman on Fri May 26, 2006 at 22:38:24 PM CDT

So seeing how 'spirited' the debate (and our traffic) gets, here's a couple more posts for everyone to digest- poll results showing Maxey nearly half the way to the all important 51% marker, with a 2-1 lead among delegates who have made up their mind. (And yes, I fully expect someone to dig up some comment of mine about Bell beating Gammage 2-1 in the one primary poll from February that shows 60% of voters undecided like this one.  Of course, Bell is now our nominee.)

Last week, you may have been contacted by a research firm hired by the Glen Maxey Campaign to conduct a phone survey of delegates. Among delegates that have made up their mind, Glen Maxey is firmly in the lead. However, the majority of delegates remain undecided. Both Maxey and Richie begin the race with a sizable base. Glen Maxey's base is larger, and he leads in all urban areas and most rural parts of Texas.

LSI Phone Survey N=1168
Maxey 24.9%
Richie 13.4%
Jones 2.6%
Und 59.1%

Lakesha Rogers (the LaRouche lady) was not included in the poll, but seeing as how Jones came in with less than 3% I don't think we need to worry too much about her exclusion. It should be noted that each Senate District casts its full delegation vote regardless if 250 delegates show up in Forth Worth or 15 (a South Texas Senate District only has 38 out of over 150 even filled, with less coming), which makes polling percentages fuzzy.

But at least these numbers are only of actual delegates and as was claimed by Maxey as a fundraiser yesterday evening his "strongest support is in rural areas". From my own experience two years ago, many rural counties are lucky to send even 1-2 delegates, and those are often the County Chairs.

Excluding the impossible to predict convention math, the following are the percentages each candidate would need to win of the remaining undecided poll to win election as chairman assuming that those already declared don't switch sides.

Maxey: 42%
Richie: 62%
Jones: 80%

If Urbina-Jones' support went to Maxey in the final vote (based solely on rumors and the fact that Jones' message is quite reformist in nature), Maxey would only need 38% of the undecided vote to Richie's 62%.  Still, the variable factor of Senate District weighted voting makes any straight up poll only helpful to a certain point. Thoughts? Other calculations?