New poll shows Womack in tighter race with Bledsoe, DeLay

An independent poll of the 3rd Congressional District race shows a tighter margin between frontrunners than did a poll released Wednesday by Rogers Mayor Steve Womack.

Womack, along with State Sen. Cecile Bledsoe of Rogers and Fort Smith attorney Gunner DeLay are considered the frontrunners in the GOP primary for the 3rd District.

The poll conducted on behalf of the Womack campaign by Wilson Strategies Research found that Womack has 31% support from likely GOP voters, with Bledsoe at 12% and DeLay at 11%. Benton County Judge Mike Moore came in at 5% and Bernard Skoch had 3% of likely voter support. None of the other candidates captured more than 1%, and 34% of those poll were undecided.

Bledsoe and DeLay campaign advisors were suspicious of the Womack results because the Womack campaign failed to release details on methodology until Thursday (April 8).

A poll released Thursday by Talk Business shows Womack with a much smaller lead over Bledsoe and DeLay, and has the undecided voters at 27%. Following are the the Talk Business survey results:
21% Steve Womack
17% Cecile Bledsoe
16% Gunner DeLay
8% Mike Moore
5% Bernie Skoch
4% Steve Lowry
2% Doug Matayo
1% Kurt Maddox

Both polls provide even more evidence that the May 18 primary election will result in a runoff battle (held June 8) between the top two vote getters.

Roby Brock, owner of Talk Business, offered this analysis of the survey results: “It is no surprise that the top 3 vote-getters in this race are Womack, Bledsoe, and DeLay. They have the strongest records of electability in the district and have fashioned the strongest campaign organizations so far. The number of undecided voters is interesting, especially compared to the much larger percentages I’m seeing in other parts of the state. This race appears headed for a run-off. Which two candidates will be in that run-off remains unclear.”

Brock’s poll shows DeLay doing well in the Fort Smith metro area.
• Crawford County
Bledsoe: 12%
DeLay: 41%
Womack: 29%

• Franklin County
Bledsoe: 18%
DeLay: 35%
Womack: 18%

• Sebastian County
Bledsoe: 8%
DeLay: 45%
Womack: 10%

Unfortunately for DeLay, the high Republican voter turnout counties of Benton and Washington counties have him at 5% and 6%, respectively.

METHODOLOGIES
The Talk Business Poll surveyed 600 registered voters who declared their intention to vote in the Republican primary. The poll, which was conducted on April 6-7, 2010, has a margin of error of +/-4%. The polls of Arkansas’ 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Congressional Districts were conducted by The Political Firm, a political strategy firm with offices in Little Rock and Baton Rouge. The calls were automated, or robocalls.

Talk Business also reports that the results are not weighted, meaning they have not manipulated numbers to reflect any previous election cycle(s). They are a pure random sample of each individual district.

Washington, D.C.-based Wilson Research Strategies offered the following as a conclusion to the methodology report for the Womack poll: “Precisely modeling a primary electorate in a district that has not faced a competitive congressional primary as currently drawn is a challenging task. However, using the best available data and a sound methodology, we arrived at the best possible approximation of the turnout in this election. In looking at past elections it is clear that we were precautionary in the percentage of the vote we expect to come from Benton County and that significantly more of the vote may come from that county which would of course further benefit Steve Womack.”

Wilson Research also provided a comparison of their survey percentages by county compared to the 2006 primary voter turnout.

GOP PRIMARY TURNOUT vs WOMACK SURVEY
Top Five Counties in the 3rd District
• Benton County
2006 primary: 49%
WRS survey: 40%

• Washington County
2006 primary: 18%
WRS survey: 21%

• Sebastian County
2006 primary: 20%
WRS survey: 15%

• Crawford County
2006 primary: 3%
WRS survey: 5%

• Pope County
2006 primary: 3%
WRS survey: 5%