Beth Pearce has another political heavyweight in addition to former Gov. Howard Dean pulling for her. Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC)— a progressive D.C.-based PAC — made its second round of “Get out the vote” calls for Pearce on Friday. This comes on top of a polling memo PCCC released on Oct. 26 and an initial round of 8,000 calls made on Pearce’s behalf on Oct. 28.
The poll, primarily an exercise in message testing around single-payer health care, also queried 1,220 “likely voters” in Vermont about the state treasurer’s race. Its findings show the race neck and neck, but Pearce pulls ahead when voters are told she is a Democrat.
When voters were asked which candidate they would vote for without being supplied with the candidates’ party identification, Wendy Wilton came out ahead of incumbent Beth Pearce, 31 percent to 29 percent, with 40 percent undecided. When the same question was posed with Wilton identified as a Republican and Pearce a Democrat, Pearce came out on top — 46 percent to 37 percent, with just 18 percent undecided. The poll reported a margin of error around +/- 4 percent.
PCCC has 950,000 members nationwide, less than 1 percent of which are from Vermont. So why is PCCC taking time out from scrounging up votes for Elizabeth Warren to pick up the phone for Pearce?
“This fight excites us,” said PCCC’s press secretary, Neil Sroka, suggesting that if Wilton was elected, she would pose a liability to Green Mountain Care. “It’s hard to know that we can trust her to run the numbers fairly,” Sroka said.
Sroka says the phone calls make use of another of the poll’s key findings: More voters are inclined to vote for Pearce when they are told that she “strongly supported” Green Mountain Care while Wilton “strong opposed” it. Forty-three percent of respondents reported they would be more likely to support Pearce; 32 percent said they would be less likely, and the remainder reported it would make no difference, or they were unsure.
Sroka also hopes Vermont’s treasurer’s race will illustrate a larger point to politicians nationwide — “fighting for single-payer health-care is a winning issue for Democrats.”
Other takeaways from the poll aren’t much of a surprise — the majority of Vermonters would prefer that the wealthiest 2 percent pick up the tab for Green Mountain Care. They don’t give much credence to claims that GMC will advance socialism, but 55 percent do think concerns about a big tax hike are a legitimate reason to oppose the plan.
