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June 24, 2007

Kulongoski v. Smith

Bored silly this morning (starting new job tomorrow... finally!) I decided to peruse the latest polls. I remained significantly bored... until I decided to check polling figures for Gov. Kulongoski and Sen. Smith.

I frequently read Blue Oregon and they frequently link to various posts at Carla's other blog: Loaded Orygun. So I know that both blogs, generally pro-Democrat and self-described Progressives have dogged Senator Smith, which shouldn't surprise anyone considering that we're moving inevitably closer to choosing who Oregonian's want to represent us in the Senate after 2008.

Before I get to the polling let me just practice some full disclosure and say that I have never voted against Gordon Smith - mostly because I bought into his self-framing as a moderate - and that I intend to vote against him in 2008 - mostly because I agree with Blue Oregon and Loaded Orygun that his record since Bush got into the White House has not been that of a moderate, his own rhetoric and continued attempts at self-framing not withstanding.

What surprised me about the polling data from Survey USA is that, in a Blue state with a Democratic Governor and an ongoing campaign to unmask Smith as the conservative that his record demonstrates that he is, that Kulongoski's polling data is in many respects worse than Smith's!

The most recent data was released this past Monday and Kulongoski has a lower approval rating and a higher disapproval rating than Smith does. Even more interesting is the breakdown of Portland versus the rest of the state. Portland is widely considered a stronghold of both Democrats and of Progressives (not all Proggies are Dems...) while Republicans and Conservatives tend to do much better in the rest of the state. Yet while Smith does do slightly better outside of Portland and he and Kulongoski have identical approval ratings in Portland, Kulongoski's disapproval rating in Portland is HIGHER than Smith's. Smith has more undecideds than Kulongoski - 9% versus 4%, respectively.

Blue Oregon rightly points out that one needs to look at trend lines too, and there the data doesn't look any better for Kulongoski. While it is true that Smith's trend lines point to decreasing approval and increasing disapproval over the last number of months, whereas Kulongoski's trend lines are significantly more chaotic, a much higher precentage of polling respondants were unsure about Smith than about Kulongoski. It also bears pointing out that Senator Wyden, who enjoys very solid approval numbers over a very long period of time, also took a hit over the last month... a hit equal to that which Smith took over the same period. Which could indicate a souring towards Congress in general rather than towards Senator Smith as an individual.

Of course that begs the question of whether public opinion has soured on Congressional Democrats, as some pundits are saying, or whether it's Congress as a whole that is losing public confidence... or it could simply be an expression of frustration at the rather fundamental disconnect between Congress and the White House. But that's another subject entirely and not the point of this post.

Another interesting demographic was union membership. While Kulongoski edged out Smith by 1% (43% to 42%) for approval among union members, he had much higher disapproval among union members (53% to 46%).

The other thing that jumps out at me, looking over the polling data, is that in the ethnicity breakdown it is only among blacks that Kulongoski enjoys approval by more than 50% of the demographic. Of course Smith only gets above 50% among hispanics. But hispanics are a much higher percentage of the population in Oregon than blacks are. Whites, far and away the overwhelmingly largest ethnic demographic in the state, give Kulongoski lower approval and higher disapproval ratings than they do for Smith. In fact that's the only ethnic group where Kulongoski's disapproval numbers exceed 50%.

So how much weight do these polls really lend to the notion that Oregon voters are souring on Gordon Smith in a way that has bearing on 2008? Especially considering how consistently high Kulongoski's disapproval numbers were for many months before winning re-election, significantly more recently than Smith, only to flounder since?

Posted by Kevin at June 24, 2007 01:32 PM