The Vermont Governor’s Race: Parsing the Poll

I just received an email from the Vermont Democratic Party touting the recent WCAX poll results for the Governor’s race. It struck me as absurd. The reported numbers were Republican Jim Douglas at 48%, Democrat Gaye Symington at 33%, Independent (nee’ Progressive) Anthony Pollina at 7%, and 12% undecided. Apparently the Democratic Party is thrilled that their candidate is 15% behind the incumbent with only 50 days left in the campaign.

Assuming that Pollina will not miraculously acquire 40 percentage points in the next month and a half, what does this mean for Symington?

The answer comes in looking slightly deeper into the poll numbers.

48% of those polled have a favorable opinion of Douglas and 43% have an unfavorable opinion. The WCAX piece doesn’t mention it, but we can assume that 9% hold no strong opinion about him.

Symington’s numbers are 37% favorable, 15% unfavorable, and 48% no opinion. Pollina’s numbers are 41% favorable, 33% unfavorable, and 26% no opinion.

Everybody who likes Douglas plans to vote for him. 89% of the people who like Symington plan to vote for her. 17% of the people who like Pollina plan to vote for him.

Half of Vermonters don’t really know much about Symington, a quarter don’t know much about Pollina, and 9% aren’t paying any attention to politics at all. (No opinion about our 6-year incumbent governor?)

That match between favorable opinion and votes for Douglas gives me the impression that his support is reasonably solid and would require major effort to disrupt. The burning question is where Symington will get another 16% of the voting population. All the undecided plus a chunk of Pollina’s support would do it, but given his favorable/vote ratio I get the feeling that Pollina’s 7% is made up of diehards.

Symington is lucky in that she has a low 15% unfavorable rating, but she will need to craft a high-speed introduction to half the voters. If she wants to carve out a piece of the incumbent’s 48% she’ll have to come up with some emotionally charged issue that damns him to the ninth ring. Douglas’s continuous platitude-based campaigning and “fall on the ball” political strategy has managed to keep 57% of the voters unoffended at the very least. It will be like punching a big lump of marshmallow Fluff.

I called this one back in May as mutually assured destruction for Symington and Pollina. Later I proposed that they agree to a form of virtual Instant Runoff Voting in order to consolidate the non-Douglas vote around one candidate. Sadly, I seem to be a minor-league Cassandra, having the gift of foresight (when watching two freight trains barreling towards each other) and the curse of not being listened to. Why the Democrats and Progressives don’t come to some agreement still mystifies me. The conservatives are willing to compromise within their own circle and win. Is it that the Democrats would rather lose than let the Progressives in the door? Would the Progressives rather forgo statewide influence than compromise their independence? Whatever the reason for mutual intransigence, the Democrats should forget about the Governor’s office till Douglas retires and concentrate on building a veto-proof majority in the legislature.