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May 13, 2005
Bad News for Perdue, Good news for Taylor and Cox
Earlier this week the AJC released further results from their Zogby poll, the one that showed Perdue and Cathy Cox tied and Perdue about 12 points ahead of Mark Taylor. This poll was very bad news for Perdue, great news for Cathy Cox, but also good news for Taylor. Here's why.
In the poll, only about 5% of Georgia voters claimed they were unaware of Sonny Perdue when asked to rate their personal approval of him. When someone hasn't heard of a figure, pollsters say they "can't rate" that person. Oftentimes you will hear a pollster refer to the number or percentage of voters who "haven't heard/can't rate".
In the same poll, about 23% of voters can't rate Cathy Cox, while a larger 36% can't rate Mark Taylor. We can argue about why Cox's name ID is higher than Taylor's, but as you'll see it isn't important.
Here's the interesting thing that's bad news for Perdue. In a head to head with Taylor, Perdue leads 47-35 with 17% "not sure". Perdue is tied with Cox 43-43 with about 14% "not sure". Remember though that only 64% of voters know who Taylor is, only 77% of voters know who Cox is, but 95% of voters know who Perdue is.
In the poll, Taylor gets 55% of his 64% name id. Cox also gets 55% of her 77% name id. This is very bad news for Perdue. Without true cross tabs we can only make an educated guess like this, but it seems that the more well known Perdue's opponent is, the higher the percentage of people that are ready to vote for them, and that there is a correlation greater than 50%. Once either Taylor or Cox is known by about 90% of the population, they could have a floor of support near 50%.
Like I said, that should give Sonny Perdue pause. By this time next year, both Democratic candidates will be well known, and because of the primary interest should be at a peak. Meanwhile, Georgians seem to have sized up Perdue already and determined that if they get to know a suitable alternative, they'll have no problem sending a do-nothing governor back to Bonaire early. What's that I hear about he's a one termer?
Posted by Chris at May 13, 2005 11:30 PM
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