Both Democratic attorney general campaigns started off earlier this summer with messages of positive campaigning. They wouldn’t be taking shots at one another and they’d be focusing on their own positive campaign messages.
Well, the gloves came off this week as “baseless allegations” of a push poll and a feisty email exchange between campaign managers as the Sorrell campaign asked Donovan’s team to make a positive campaigning pledge in light of what some Sorrell supporters called a push poll. Donovan’s camp fired back with demands for at least three debates beyond the already planned WCAX debate.
Paul Heintz’s column in Seven Days this week featured a Sorrell supporter (whose son works in the Attorney General’s Office) claiming he was asked to participate in what he said was a “push poll,” designed to elicit responses that would slant the results against Sorrell.
The Donovan campaign team seemed deeply offended by the accusation, and responded in an email from campaign manager Ryan Emerson.
“In response to your baseless allegations that we conducted a push poll, we did not,” the email reads.
As proof, the Donovan campaign, in what Emerson called “an unprecedented show of transparency,” invited reporters to view the polling questions … as long as they followed Emerson’s rules.
“The viewing will be for 30 MINUTES,” Emerson said in a media advisory. “Any media arriving after 1:30 will not be able to view a copy of the poll questions. Members of the media will not be able to retain any questions either digitally or in hard copy, nor will the information be available for reporting as it is proprietary and protected. These are the only conditions upon which reporters will be allowed to review these questions.”
They held to their word. VTDigger was given numbered copy one of four and allowed to view the questions.
As VTDigger could not confer with an independent expert on the poll – only “credentialed members of the media” were allowed to view the poll – any findings below are based solely on reporter observations.
The campaign said the poll, contracted to Lincoln Park Strategies, cost $10,000 and consisted of phone interviews with 400 Vermonters. It covered a broad variety of issues from crime to Vermont Yankee to prescription drug abuse to health care reform to migrant workers.
The poll sought Vermonters’ opinions of President Barack Obama, Gov. Peter Shumlin, TJ Donovan and Bill Sorrell. It also had questions seeking to feel Vermonters’ pulse on a variety of issues. Most of those questions were worded in a way that didn’t seem to lead to any particular answer.
Other questions made it obvious who was paying for the poll.
By and large, the poll seemed to be – as the Donovan campaign claims – scientific. There were no questions that put words in voters’ mouths or used clever wording to make accusations. But there was no way to confirm the nature of the poll because reporters weren’t allowed to copy the questions and ask experts to confirm that it was not a push poll. For more information about push polls, which is a form of negative campaigning disguised as a poll, go to the American Association of Public Opinion Research.
The Donovan campaign provided as comparison what they said was a real push poll: One that was famously conducted in South Carolina in the 2000 elections by the Bush campaign. The third question asked,“ If you were told that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child out of wedlock, would you be more or less likely to support his candidacy?”
While the questions were largely in line with what the Donovan campaign said they were, their close guard over the four printed copies of the questions – either Emerson or Donovan communications manager Jay Ells watched over any reporter in possession of the numbered packets – showed uncharacteristic sensitivity by a campaign that has largely avoided negative headlines.
After all of the packets had been returned, Emerson said the campaign had done more than enough to answer accusations about the poll.
“This press conference today was an unprecedented show of transparency on the part of this campaign,” he said. “It’s very rare that other campaigns ever show their polling questions to the media. In fact, this is the only example of it that I’m aware of. But we’re proud to do so, and we hope we can put the issue to rest.”
For more about the nature of polling, read Kate Robinson’s story, “Everything you wanted to know about polling, but were afraid to ask.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:31 a.m. on Aug. 4, with more information about push polling.
