Elizabeth Mitchell's campaign has released a poll showing the Maine Senate President trouncing three potential Democratic opponents in the June 2010 primary election.
When asked who they would vote for if the election were held tomorrow between Mitchell, Steve Rowe, Patrick McGowan and Dawn Hill, 37% chose Mitchell, 20% Rowe, 10% McGowan, and 3% Hill.
In a head-to-head match up, Mitchell beats Rowe 46% to 24%.
According to campaign volunteer Jodi Quintero, the poll is independent and was conducted before Mitchell entered the race by research firm Kiley and Company. Mitchell was then approached by the firm and chose to purchase certain questions from the survey for release.
The firm interviewed 301 Maine Democratic Primary voters (a relatively small sample size) on July 21-22, 2009. No other methodological information is given. Rosa Scarcelli, John Richardson and other current and potential Democratic candidates were not included in the poll.
Daily Kos/Research 2000 also released a Maine poll today showing every Democratic candidate polled beating every Republican, except for a match up between Steve Rowe and Les Otten, where Otten edges Rowe by 1%.
Full results after the jump...
At first, I just thought it
At first, I just thought it funny that this article leads with the older, less reliable and less independent of the two polls. Then I got to thinking...
The Daily Kos poll interviewed twice as many Mainers, and the data is only 2 days old. Based on that poll, Rowe's favorable ratings are at 31% and Mitchell's at 28%. Yet the only mention of the Daily Kos poll, buried at the bottom, makes it sound like it builds the case for Mitchell.
All in all, the spin on this article is dizzying. Not hard to infer that the writer is a Mitchell supporter -- or to conclude that the "news" of Rowe's relative weakness is extremely premature!