Dole decides to run against IVR

Not surprisingly Elizabeth Dole's spokesman derides our poll today as a 'bunch of junk,' blaming it on IVR. That's the card her people always play when they want to complain about us because they know we have such an accurate record of polling in North Carolina that they can't point to any examples of us getting it wrong here to question our credibility.

It's interesting to note, however, that Dole released an internal poll at about the same time we released our early July numbers. They showed the race at 51-36 then, while we showed it at 51-37. Was our poll a bunch of junk then? I guess if it was then Dole's pollster must be a bunch of junk too.

You can choose your method of poll operation though- you'll find Dole tanking no matter what. Her lead dropped six points from Civitas' July poll to its August one, and Civitas was in the field before Kay Hagan started running her own ads introducing herself to the electorate which complement the negative ones about Dole.

Gidley's right though, there may be something flawed about our poll. We found Hagan with the support of just 61% of black voters at this point, a figure that realistically should be 80% at the least come November. Correct for that and Hagan's lead at this point is closer to the seven point range.