More information on the Push-Poll in Southern Oregon

What makes you hate? An ugly poll is circulating in the Medford-Ashland area.

"No sooner had I read your blog than I received a call from Survey Sampling International. Wow. Just wow . . . The statements and questions were ugly."   Cathy Watt.

Jeff Golden

A picture emerges: the poll was seeking to discern what messages might sway committed voters. Four readers of this blog have added their reports.

The company doing the sampling appears to be attempting to determine what messages or issues might motivate local voters in the race for State Senate between candidates Democrat Jeff Golden and Republican Jessica Gomez. 

The polling company, Survey Sampling, International, website www.surveysampling.com, operates under at least two brands. It has a headquarters in Connecticut and offices and call centers in many cities across the US, plus in Europe. They aren't teen age pranksters. They aren't Russian meddlers. They are a real, professional American polling company. Somebody paid them good money for this. We don't know who, yet.

Jessica Gomez

I was contacted by four local citizens, in response to yesterday's blog request. All four respondents are very familiar with political campaigns and are personally visible in civic life. Cathy Watt is Chief Financial Officer of  a public affairs consultancy. Casey Stine has been a candidate for public office herself and is the wife of Kevin Stine, Medford City Council Member and former candidate for this office. Gayle Lewis is a public spirited retired Nurse Practitioner who publishes columns in the Jacksonville Review. The fourth is a man who asked to be identified simply as "an active Democratic Party leader."

All four poll respondents objected to the poll. It was either not really a poll at all, or it was a bad one.

One informant, Gayle Lewis, said the questioning and poll discipline broke down almost immediately. It turned into a conversation. "It was my pollster's first call. Poor thing. My take: within a few questions it was clear this was not a poll. I challenged the pollster about the questions that could not be answered.  At the end, I was being asked questions with wording that disparaged Ms. Gomez. I had answered a question responding with a favorable opinion for her."

The conclusion of this voter was that "the 'poll' was a device to offer language to disparage a candidate."

Cathy Watt reported hearing a purported opinions of Gomez, including "she doesn't pay her taxes, she only supports government funding if it come to her, she is pro-Jordan Cove pipeline." She gave up trying to track the questions, she said, when she heard statements attributed to Jeff Golden, "we spend too much to keep people alive" and that he "supports radical al Qaeda."  Watt's memory of the poll was that since she had answered favorably about Gomez near the beginning, all of the questions/statements she was asked to respond to  that related to Gomez were hostile toward Gomez.

Casey Stine spent 17 minutes on the phone with the poll and came away with the impression that it was, in fact, a poll, with an intent to learn what messages might be contained in an advertisement that might change a person's mind. However, the trial statements seemed so implausible and extreme that it was worthless for anything other than trying to put false or confusing information into the local political rumor circles. She cited the question "Jeff Golden supports the LNG pipeline; does that make you very concerned, somewhat concerned, not at all concerned."  The premise of the question is implausible for a voter with any sense at all of Golden's political bent. The overall takeaway was that call was in fact intended as a poll, but was actually so botched that it became just a haphazard negative hit piece on everyone. Worthless, except to make trouble.

The fourth informant, an active participant in local Democratic circles, said he intentionally gave erratic and untruthful answers in an attempt both to confound the poll and to get information about the poll. He reported the same format as had Alan DeBoer, with the poll starting off with "easy" questions regarding Trump, Kate Brown, Knute Buehler, etc.

He said he answered "mostly favorable" to Jeff Golden, to see what would happen.

For him, the questions started with summaries of "pretty run-of-the-mill" Golden positions taken from his website, and asked if those positions seemed convincing and made him feel more or less favorable. The questions then went to Gomez and these were harshly negative, e.g. "Gomez had a history of tax evasion and has had to pay the county thousands in fees."  

The poll then returned to Golden and asked for opinions on whether he knew Golden supported "the biggest tax increase in Oregon's history," creating a sales tax, supported higher gasoline road taxes, and how he felt hearing that Golden was quoted saying "Abortion is a bullshit red meat issue that doesn't actually affect people's lives."  This report coincides with the reports of others, by offering the sharpest negative statements about whomever one said one supported. 

The poll: malevolent, or simply poorly done?

Making calls to the area

There is a poll out there. You might be called. It appears to be--and maybe is--a legitimate poll attempting to find what what messages might move opinions. What are Golden's weak spots? Gomez's? What things might you hear about them that would change your mind? How flamboyantly dishonest can an advertisement be, and you still believe it?

But apparently the poll chose trial statements to move opinion that are so implausible and extreme that poll recipients' responses were to recoil.  The negative statements are too nasty, too implausible. 

I am hearing from the politically engaged. Alan DeBoer, plus the two people who knew to call Cathy Shaw, plus the four people who responded directly to me having read this blog are not typical voters. They are politically engaged. Politically engaged people hear false statements and reject them because they recognize them to be wrong. 

The happy way to think of this is that the poll constructors badly under-estimate the knowledge and common sense of local voters. People here are too smart to believe flagrant falsehoods. All good, here in Southern Oregon.

Or not.

The people I didn't hear from. Hundreds, maybe thousands of calls are being made into the Rogue Valley, and I have reports from a total of seven people who called "foul" on the poll and contacted me. All politically engaged. What about all those other people, people interested enough to vote, perhaps, but not so engaged, and who on election day will remember an impression from a startling thing they heard once that stuck in their minds, that Jessica Gomez is a scofflaw who refuses to pay her taxes, or that Jeff Golden is a terrorist sympathizer friendly with al Qaeda?  

Polls like this are not harmless.


[Still to learn, for future posts.  Someone paid for this. Someone with real money. Who?]