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CalBuzz Notes Tulchin’s and Probolsky’s Disagreement Over Gubernatorial Poll
CalBuzz noted that Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin declined to sign off on a poll of the Governor’s race on which he had originally worked with Republican pollster Adam Probolsky.
From the story:
“Capitol Weekly preserves integrity: HT to Anthony York of Capitol Weekly for taking a pass on a survey, done by Orange County Republican pollster Adam Probolsky, that York had intended to release through his respected web site. Turns out the Democratic pollster he had paired with Probolsky – Ben Tulchin of San Francisco — had significant methodological problems with Probolsky’s survey and York didn’t want to risk his site’s good name with a bad poll.”
“While just about every pollster in the known universe has recently found the race with Jerry Brown up 5 or more points over Meg Whitman, Probolsky turned in a survey with a virtual dead heat: Brown 41% and Whitman 39%. The survey was taken Sept. 30-Oct 4 among 752 registered voters.
“We wanted a bipartisan poll but we didn’t have bipartisan sign-off,” said York. “This is Adam’s poll. They (Tulchin and Probolsky) couldn’t agree, so we didn’t want to put it out.”
Said Tulchin: “The results that Adam found were based on a sample that I felt was too conservative and too Caucasian and did not accurately represent a statewide sample. As a result, I could not endorse the poll, so Adam decided to release it on his own.”
What particularly bothered Tulchin was not Probolsky’s projection of a 54.7% turnout, which Ben thought was “a bit conservative but not beyond the realm of possibility.” Rather, the survey under-represents Latinos and blacks, with just 12.8% Latino voters and 2.9% black, instead of 14-15% Latinos and at least 4% blacks, as expected.
“These are critical demographic groups,” Tulchin said. “To undercount them in a survey has a direct impact on the poll results for the governor’s race.” Probolsky’s poll, he added, with a more conservative and Caucasian turnout model, resembled a Whitman campaign poll “that showed Brown with a slight lead and Gloria Allred with a 92% name ID, which is not very credible.”