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See the follow-up post here for an important update to this post.
Gerald Johnson of Capital Survey Research Center, an arm of the Alabama Education Association, reportedly told the Hole in the Wall Gang yesterday (Tuesday) that his polling showed the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination between Artur Davis and Ron Sparks is tightening up. The Hole in the Wall Gang is a group of Montgomery Democratic heavyweights, typically including Jere Beasley and Paul Hubbert among others, who meet informally at the Farmers Market downtown to discuss Alabama politics.
According to a source familiar with the gathering, Johnson told the group that Davis’ numbers have dropped such that Davis and Sparks are essentially within the margin of the error for the poll. While Davis’ numbers have dropped, the number of undecided voters has grown, and Sparks has not yet grown his support meaningfully.
Appears as if Davis’ lack of attention to true supporters in North Alabama has finally paid off, among other things. Being able to identify and relate to the regular voting folk is what this is all about. Are people realizing that they do not know him anymore?
Words can’t describe how much fun it would be to see Sparks’ comedic campaign continue through to the general.
Convenient as AEA supports Sparks. If the media could only pick up on how Hubbert and his pollster play them.
The Artur Davis Campaign is going down hill in a hurry. He had a 25 point lead a year ago.
What’s at the end of a rainbow? a pot of gold next to a Davis supporter. Unfortunately, neither exists in reality.
Have known Gerald a long, long time. Anyone who thinks he doctors his numbers to make AEA feel warm and fuzzy is dead wrong. If you are the CEO, do you want your sales manager showing you real numbers or imaginary ones? Hubbert didn’t build his empire based on half-baked info.
LA – no, Hubbert built his empire with money, threats and deception. That, however was not the point. Gerald J will lie as much as necessary and if you think otherwise you are naive at best. Hubbert may make decisions on real numbers – certainly he does – but he uses cooked numbers to play the media and those he cares to influence.
Didn’t Gerald Johnson have Riley’s Amendment One sailing to passage on the eve of that election?
I suspect Davis will go negative and spend ever last dollar and then win barely.
Prince is right for once.
Davis is hemorraging money and support.
surely there are other competent pollsters at work out there? what do they see? numbers work different ways – artur supporters reading that a poll shows he;s losing support just might make them work a little harder — send a check, make some phone calls, go to a rally and wave a sign, volunteer for a GOTV phone bank. i wonder how many possible democratic primary voters are being lured over to vote for byrne after reading about the AEA-Tim James phony combine against Byrne?
This is all about the health care vote. Davis has alienated Democratic voters, and can no longer take the black vote for granted — not by a long shot.
[...] Danny, on May 6th, 2010, at 10:09 pm A source close to the Artur Davis campaign took exception to the poll results Gerald Johnson presented to the Hole in the Wall Gang on Tuesday. The source indicated that Hamilton Campaigns out of Florida had returned results to the campaign [...]
[...] information provided to Danny at the Political Parlor yesterday. This release follows a report on the Parlor about new numbers from the AEA’s polling guru showing the Democratic primary race for governor tightening. With less than a month to go until the [...]
[...] confirmed that he said to the group, as the Parlor passed along to you, that polling by Capital Survey for AEA showed, “Davis’ numbers have dropped, the [...]