NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Poll Watch: Support for Eyman’s I‑1125 sinks

Local poll­ster Stu­art Elway, whose firm has been sur­vey­ing pub­lic opin­ion in Wash­ing­ton State for many years, has anoth­er sur­vey mea­sur­ing sup­port for I‑1125 out today — the third in a series he has con­duct­ed for this election.

The sur­vey found that sup­port for I‑1125 has sunk dra­mat­i­cal­ly, from fifty-six per­cent in favor last month to forty-three per­cent in favor this month. Oppo­si­tion, mean­while, climbed from twen­ty-five per­cent to thir­ty-six per­cent. The num­ber of unde­cid­ed vot­ers remains the same, at around twen­ty percent.

On bal­lot mea­sures, unde­cid­ed vot­ers his­tor­i­cal­ly tend to break no when there are good rea­sons to vote against (as there are with I‑1125).

The Seat­tle Times went and got Tim Eyman’s reac­tion, and described Eyman as try­ing “to put a pos­i­tive spin on the poll”. No sur­prise there — that’s what Tim does, although in our view, spin is too char­i­ta­ble of a word.

While it’s true that more respon­dents of Elway’s poll were in favor than against, the gap is get­ting close to the mar­gin of error.

If Tim Eyman puts any stock in polls, he should be wor­ried. When a bal­lot mea­sure is polling under fifty per­cent, that’s a sign that it’s not going to pass.

Of course, this is just one poll. And even if there were oth­er polls back­ing it up, it would still just be opin­ion research, which isn’t always reliable.

The real poll — the only one that mat­ters — is cur­rent­ly being con­duct­ed by coun­ty elec­tions offi­cials across Wash­ing­ton State.

Please join us in vot­ing NO on Tim Eyman’s I‑1125 between now and Novem­ber 8th, if you haven’t already. Keep our roads safe, and keep Wash­ing­ton rolling.

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2 Comments

  1. It will be inter­est­ing to see if any oth­er polls come out on I‑1125 and if the results back up Elway’s research.

    # by Mackerel :: October 25th, 2011 at 2:50 PM
    • The Wash­ing­ton Poll, con­duct­ed by the UW, is due out on Hal­loween (next Mon­day) and it should include I‑1125.

      # by Andrew :: October 27th, 2011 at 12:28 AM
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