Thursday, November 8, 2007

Lieutenant Governor race moving nowhere

I have a friend with an interest in the Lieutenant Governor's race who calls me frequently and asks when I think we'll start to see some movement.

When we started polling the Democratic Lieutenant Governor primary in February, 59% of respondents were undecided.

That first poll had the highest percentage of respondents choosing a candidate of the ones we've done all year. Since then the percentage of undecided respondents has fluctuated in the range of 62-66%.

The candidates are out working hard, attending events across the state, and speaking to pretty much any crowd that will have them.

But until they start spending a lot of money, probably in March and April, it's unlikely anything the candidates do will have enough resonance with voters to cause any significant changes in the polls.

An interesting although risky tactic would be for one of the candidates to go on the air or start doing mail in the next couple months instead of waiting until close before the election. The downside could be a contender blowing all his money and having none left for the stretch run. But it could also allow one of the candidates to remove himself from the pack and build momentum that would ease fundraising and make it possible to recoup the funds spent earlier so as to have plenty left to spend in the last month or so when voters are really starting to pay attention and decide who to vote for.

No comments:

 
Web Statistics