Sen. Lincoln disputes narrow lead in Talk Business Poll

A new Talk Business voter survey shows U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln with a narrow lead over Lt. Gov. Bill Halter in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate seat.

Lincoln’s campaign apparently didn’t appreciate the survey, and fired back quickly with the unusual move of releasing results from their internal polling.

The Talk Business Poll of 1,167 statewide voters shows that incumbent Sen. Lincoln leads Halter 38% to 31% in the Democratic primary. The relatively unknown conservative candidate D.C. Morrison pulls 10% of the vote with 20% of Democratic voters undecided.

“With 3 weeks until early voting begins, the high-profile battle between Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter is far from over,” Talk Business editor-in-chief Roby Brock noted in his report. “There is clearly room for undecided voters to swing this election to either candidate.  However, it is not unlikely that this race could result in a run-off due to Morrison’s alternative candidacy.”

Brock is also a content partner with The City Wire.



The poll, which has a margin of error of +/-3%, was conducted April 14 among likely Democratic voters. Zata3, a Washington, D.C.-based polling firm, conducted the automated calls and has no clients in the Senate race in Arkansas this election cycle.

The results are not weighted, meaning they the numbers were not manipulated to reflect any previous election cycle(s). Brock said candidates, campaigns and their supporters are free to apply their own weighting to interpret the results. (Link here for a breakout of the survey results.)

However, the Lincoln camp said their internal polling shows Lincoln with a 51% to 34% lead over Halter, with Morrison netting just 3%. Also, the Lincoln poll shows 12% undecided.

“I don’t fault Roby Brock for conducting an automated poll because they are very inexpensive,” Lincoln campaign manager Steve Patterson said in a statement. “However, they are also very unreliable. We note particularly an unusually high number of undecided voters in Roby’s poll, an oversample of third congressional district Democratic voters and a double-digit reading for a virtually unknown candidate who opposes most Democratic policies.”

The Lincoln statement said in response to the Talk Business Poll the campaign is
“taking the unusual step of releasing our latest internal poll.” The Lincoln survey, conducted by he Benenson Strategy Group, was conducted April 8 and “was a scientific, random sample of 650 frequent Democratic Primary voters conducted by live callers, unlike the Talk Business poll,” noted the Lincoln statement.
 
The Lincoln campaign statement pushed its explanation further with this comment: “Senator Lincoln does not take a lot of stock in early polling because she believes it is a snapshot of public opinion at the time, not necessarily how people will vote on Election Day. However, when automated polls continue to show wild variations in public opinion, we felt compelled to release our own numbers.”

Following the comments from Lincoln, Brock issued this statement to The City Wire: “With all due respect to the Lincoln campaign, I stand behind our poll and its results. Zata3 is a nationally recognized and trusted polling firm. Our sample size was nearly twice as large as Lincoln’s and more current by one week. Whether a live person or a recorded message asks for whom you are voting, doesn’t really matter to a voter in this age of technology. I’d also note that the Lincoln campaign has not objected to any other poll or its methodology in this election cycle until now. I don’t take it personally and still think this race has a long way to go in the next few weeks.”