ruminations…

HonAd: Poll shows Akaka has edge in Senate race

The article relies upon a poll conducted by Ward Research, a Honolulu-based company. In the past, Ward has been viewed as one of the more credible polling firms in Hawaii, but the methodology they used in this poll has caused me to re-think that assumption. For a complete sense of the problems, you would have to read their “poll” on the Second Congressional District race, which was really more of “name recognition” survey.

Here: HonAd: Second CD Congressional Poll

On the Republican side, for example, Bob Hogue, a former television sportscaster, has high name recognition and has an affable public image. So he scored high. But few people who monitor politics in the State legislature would give him very high marks as either a lawmaker or as a politician. He is generally regarded as a bit of a “dim bulb.”

His Republican opponent, Quentin Kawananakoa, on the other hand, is also very likeable, but is bright, articulate, polished without being “slick.” Because he has not been in the public eye, he has pretty low name recognition. There is no way that the poll offers a sense of how that race would turn out. Even as a “snapshot” of current opinion, it measures name recognition, not an intention to vote for the candidate. Of course, the sampling of likely GOP Second CD voters was very small (90-something) and the margin of error was recognized by the pollsters as very high.

The sampling for the Akaka-Case poll was probably adequate, except that they allowed voters to self-identify as “likely Democratic primary voters” in a way that makes the whole project suspect. I have not seen the actual questions, but my hunch is that early in the poll, they asked respondents if they were likely to take a Republican or a Democratic ballot in the September primary. 30% (this is from my memory) said that they would be voting in the GOP primary, so they were not asked about the Akaka-Case race.

In many states, it would be reasonable to assume that such a response would be roughly reflective of what is likely to happen in the primary. But Hawaii has a “semi-open” primary. On Election Day, voters are presented with the ballots of all political parties. They can choose in the privacy of the voting booth which primary they wish to vote in. If the polling question was asked along the lines of my hunch, the resulting data would tend to greatly overrepresent likely GOP voters. Many Republicans, asked such a question months before the primary, would reflexively, and proudly, reply that they will be taking a Republican ballot. But in truth, the percentage will be much smaller on Election Day.

This is not because GOP voters are intentionally misleading the pollster. It is because they have not had to fully process their thoughts prior to being asked the question. The GOP primary rarely has any interesting or meaningful contests. In the majority of races, the Democrat is going to win in the general, so serious and competent people have little reason to interrupt their lives to run as a Republican. The Party will sometimes put up a credible candidate and most reasonable Republicans within the district will assent to that choice, so when there are primary battles on the GOP side, only one candidate is regarded as credible, while the other is a longshot eccentric.

As a result, Hawaii Republican voters tend to vote in large numbers in the Democratic primary instead. Our voting system allows this to happen. Most of these GOP voters are sincere in their choice, rather than trying to “game the system” for partisan advantage. They generally vote for the most Republican-like of the Democratic candidates. In this race, that would clearly be Ed Case.

The Ward Research poll appears to have failed to guard against the problems this might cause for their polling data. One way to minimize the effect, would be to ask questions specifically about the Akaka-Case race, causing the respondent to think through their feelings on the race, BEFORE asking them which ballot they would take. Another safeguard would be to ask them to pick which statement is more descriptive of their past voting behavior:
1) In the primary, I always vote in the Democratic primary
2) In the primary, I always vote in the Republican primary
3) In the primary, I vote in whichever primary has the most interesting races.

Or something along those lines. Only then, and with the Akaka-Case contest fresh in their minds, should they be asked if they are likely to vote in the Democratic or Republican primary.

As a result, I believe the percentage of Republican voters planning to vote for Ed Case was greatly underreported. A lot depends on whether the GOP primary battle in the Second CD between Hogue and Kawananakoa heats up enough to keep GOP voters in the GOP primary. I do not know if that will happen. But even if it does, that would only suppress some GOP crossover in half the state.

I have not checked the historic record, but I would guess that only about 20% of Hawaii’s primary voters will vote in the 2006 GOP primary, meaning that the polling sampling has excluded about 10% of the voter base and that this 10% is self-identified as Republican! My hunch is that about 80% of those GOP voters will vote for Case, meaning that support for Akaka may have been overreported by about 8% in this poll and Akaka’s alleged 11% lead is shaved down to 3%, well within the poll’s report 5.3% margin of error.

To my mind, once you rework the Ward Research data, you have to view the Akaka-Case race as too close to call.

We’ll have to work to change that!

-K

Politics in Hawaii, or more precisely, electoral politics, are in a period of “rapid uncertainty.” Underlying all this are fundamental changes in the economy, technology and demographics. The “Old order” is dying; the New Order has not yet established control. Meanwhile, the Market rolls on, transforming everything, transforming values, both economic and spiritual.

The immediate cause of this political uncertainty is the decision of Congressman Ed Case to knock Senator Daniel Akaka from his seat in the US Senate. Ed believes his beliefs are more in tune with the attitudes of the voters and with the realities of a changed world.

Most Democrats view the same set of changes and intrepret Ed’s actions as taking advantage of some (unfortunate) changed circumstances, including:

1). the large number of newcomers from the United States, especially haoles, who do not share “local” values and do not understand Hawaii’s history and culture;

2). the decline of a unionized workforce, the fragmentation of the workforce into many small-scale workplaces and the decline of pro-worker sensibilities; and

3). the passing of older voters who grew up during the plantation era and the period of blatant Big 5 political and economic domination.

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