He's a divider, not a uniter

MIRS picks up on Trevor Thomas' push poll.

Third congressional district candidate Trevor THOMAS released this week results of his own poll that he says shows that when voters are told information about both Democratic candidates, he wins. Not so fast, said the campaign of primary opponent Steve PESTKA.  The poll, conducted by The Mellman Group, Inc. was taken June 14 to June 17 within the district, with a margin of error of 4.9 percent.  It first measured hard name identification, where Pestka won out with 40 percent to Thomas 19 percent. Initially, 64 percent of those surveyed were undecided, 21 percent supported Pestka and 16 percent supported Thomas.

But then -- and this is what the campaign claims matters -- when given a short description of the candidates, just 25 percent remained undecided. Forty-six percent were for Thomas and 24 percent went with Pestka.

This is what happens when you commence a fund raising campaign, starting with the results of a purposefully skewed poll, on a Friday. You get MIRS covering the thing late into the evening, when normal people are interested in anything but politics.

And, no, what's important here is not how Trevor Thomas' people frame this campaign. The idea that the campaign will be decided entirely on how their paid consultants ask questions ignores the realities that other people might have something to say about it. What's important, if we're going to give any weight to polling, is where support currently lays.  That means what's important in a push poll released by one campaign is that people in something intended to be skewed still go the other way.