Team Arnold Touts Polling Company Banned from News Agencies

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As fewer and fewer voters support Arnold Schwarzenegger’s special election, his political consultant Mike Murphy sent out a supportive poll from SurveyUSA.

The trouble is, SurveyUSA uses what highly respected University of Michigan survey expert Michael Traugott calls a computerized audience response poll – or as Roll Call called it “C.R.A.P.” (Roll Call, 8/1/02)

In San Francisco’s Mayor’s race in 2003, “the reliability of … [SurveyUSA’s] … poll of voter preferences in the San Francisco mayor and district attorney races … [was] questioned because respondents were queried by a computer rather than a person.” (San Francisco Chronicle, 11/18/03)

Also, the sample used for this current poll is not representative of current voter registration and trends – instead it has a virtual 50/50 Democrat/Republican split. The likely turnout for the special election would hardly resemble a similar split considering California currently has 43 percent Democratic registration and 35 percent Republican registration. (Secretary of State’s Office, 9/9/05)

Moreover, the SurveyUSA poll results indicate a turnout of 21 percent of 18 – 34 year old voters. That is about two times what the actual results would be for a special election.

It is important to note that the Associated Press, Roll Call and other reputable news outlets WILL NOT USE SurveyUSA poll results.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee executive director Jim Jordan summed it up best when he said “[SurveyUSA] offer[s] the ring of authenticity while in reality being cheap, uninformed, unreliable and meaningless.” (Roll Call, 8/1/02)


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