CNN gets it wrong again

CNN thinks this poll indicates trouble for incumbents in 2009 and 2010. The poll has Corzine behind his expected Republican challenger. One problem though, a whopping 61% did not know enough about his challenger to form ANY OPINION ABOUT HIM (any guesses as to how many of the 39% who claim to be able to form an opinion don't remember will have forgotten either his first or last name at this point?). In other words, his "challenger" in this poll was basically just a generic Republican. It has been proven time and again that a generic challenger from the opposing party almost always does better than an actual named opponent. Another problem, CNN fails to mention the 17% of respondents who didn't choose either candidate. Given that this is a heavily Democratic state, with a large minority population (who overwhelming support Democrats but usually represent a disproportionatley high number of "undecided" voters) it is fairly easy to predict that if the election were held today the vast majority of these "undecideds" would still vote Democratic...as they did in the 2004 and 2006 elections. Despite relatively close polls the "undecideds" gave Democrats huge wins by breaking almost entirely for the Democrat in both elections and there is no reason to think this trend will change.

There is every reason to believe that 13-15% of the 17% would vote for the Democrat. Even if only 13% vote for Corzine then he would, today, split 50-50 against a generic Republican. Against an actual Republican, with plenty of positions that New Jersey voters disagree with, and personal issues that all people have and so on, Corzine would likely be ahead by 10 points (in other words 5% of the people who claim they would vote for the generic Republican over Corzine would switch their vote to Corzine when faced with an actual Republican, in reality this is probably a conservative estimate as the swing is often even bigger). Unless CNN thinks a 10 point win in NJ is "trouble" for incumbents (for a Democrat it isn't great news but it certainly isn't trouble) then this poll indicates absolutely nothing at all. C'mon CNN, learn a little something about polls, you've been at this for a while now and should have your act together already.

Madison