Alaska Senate Poll: Far, Far Less Than Meets the Eye

A Harper Polling survey conducted for the Tea Party Leadership Fund, an obscure conservative group that has supported Georgia Republican Rep. Paul Broun and Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, is one of those polls probably meant for fundraising and little else.

Though writing about the poll and the polling memo automatically gives them more attention than they deserve, those of us in the media can’t merely ignore these kinds of questionable polls conducted for groups that seem more interested in fundraising than in affecting elections.

The May 6-7 IVR survey of 379 respondents tested former Gov. Sarah Palin, 2010 GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell in a three-way Republican primary ballot test, as well as Palin-Miller and Treadwell-Miller in head-to-head ballot tests.

The Harper Polling memo claims that Palin “leads” in the three-way ballot (Palin 32 percent, Treadwell 30 percent, Miller 14 percent), even though her 2-point advantage over Treadwell is well within the poll’s margin of error.

Both Palin and Treadwell lead Miller in head-to-heads, but the lack of a Palin-vs.-Treadwell ballot test deserves to raise eyebrows about the group’s motivation in underwriting the survey. Even including Palin in the poll seems odd. Treadwell has already formed an exploratory committee, while there is no reason to believe that Palin is in the least bit interested in a Senate race.

The polling memo says that “Palin boasts the strongest image” among GOP voters, but that is far from an entirely accurate assessment.

Palin’s name ID ratings are 62 percent favorable/30 percent unfavorable, while Treadwell’s are 54 percent favorable and 15 percent unfavorable. His favorable rating is lower than Palin’s, but his favorable-to-unfavorable ratio is much better. Her ratio is about 2-to-1, while his is close to 3.5-to-1. Treadwell’s unfavorable rating is half of Palin’s.

As for the Tea Party Leadership Fund, according to its 2012 end-of-the-year Federal Election Commission report, the group raised $1.17 million. Almost 90 percent of that came from small-dollar, unitemized individual contributions.

But the fund spent only a little more than $205,000 (less than 18 percent of total receipts) on contributions to candidates or on independent expenditures. More than half of the fund’s federal disbursements during the same period — $545,248 of $951,096 — went to Strategic Fundraising, a well-known Minnesota-based GOP fundraising firm.

Putting First-Quarter Senate Fundraising Into Perspective

First-quarter fundraising from 2011 gave no indication that Cruz would be the eventual GOP Senate nominee in Texas. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

For political junkies in a nonelection year, the release of quarterly fundraising reports by incumbents and potential candidates provides one of the few moments of true delight. After all, the reports are filled with numbers, giving us quantitative measures of fundraising strength and potential electoral success.

However, those Federal Election Commission reports aren’t nearly as useful as you may think.

(See also in Roll Call, Chart: First-Quarter Fundraising Reports for 2014 Senate Races)

I went back to the spring of 2011 to look at what knowledge we could have deduced back then from first-quarter Senate reports, and there were plenty of contests where the FEC numbers were misleading rather than enlightening.

In the Indiana race, Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar held a rather comfortable advantage over primary challenger Richard Mourdock, $3 million to $121,000, yet Mourdock ultimately won the nomination. Club for Growth money isn’t reflected in these reports, which also couldn’t possibly reflect the antagonism that many Indiana conservatives came to feel toward the veteran establishment conservative senator. Full story

Steve King’s Cash Raises Eyebrows, Doubts About Senate Bid

(Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is mentioned often as a possible 2014 Senate candidate for retiring Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin’s seat. But if King’s first-quarter 2013 fundraising report is any indication, the conservative Republican isn’t headed for a statewide race.

King raised just $93,000 in total contributions during the first three months of the year, including only $78,000 from individuals. He ended the quarter with $90,000 in the bank. CQ Roll Call labeled him a “loser” among those whose first-quarter reports were worth monitoring.

Last cycle, King raised more than $3.7 million in individual, party and PAC contributions to turn back an aggressive challenge from former Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack. The race  turned out not to be as close as many had expected. Of course, his 2011 first-quarter report was also unimpressive. He showed receipts for that quarter at just more than $41,000 and ended March with $142,000 on hand.

Bruce Braley, the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic Senate nomination next year, got off to a fast fundraising start this year.  His Federal Election Commission report showed more than $856,000 raised during the quarter, ending March with just more than $1 million in the bank after transferring funds from his House committee. Full story

Monthly Party Fundraising Reports Don’t Tell the Whole Story

Every election cycle the party campaign committees, and many in the national media, make a big deal about party fundraising.

Coverage of the money chase has been exacerbated by the fact that these committees file monthly reports detailing their fundraising, as opposed to quarterly. To wit:

•  “House Democratic campaign raises more than $6 million in January,” a headline on CNN’s website noted in mid-February.
• “DCCC Outraises NRCC in January,” Hotline On Call announced.
• “DSCC Raised Millions More Than NRSC in January,” CQ Roll Call’s At the Races blog reported.

There is nothing wrong with these pieces. But the party committee numbers, while noteworthy, simply aren’t as important as they once were. Full story