Van Fans and Ford Supporters – get your facts straight
As I was perusing blogs about the race, I saw that Forward with Ford was delighted with a poll by the Knox-News Sentinel and OnMessage, Inc. giving Van a 29-point lead over the nearest competitor. Van Fans also reported that the poll indicated that Van was the “most popular candidate in the race“. After I got over my shock, I decided to get to the truth of this matter. After doing a search, I found the poll on Van’s campaign website. Ford and Van Fan’s interpretations of this poll are extremely misleading and completely distort the truth.
Van’s campaign website states that – based on poll numbers – Van is “the most popular candidate in this U.S. Senate race”. Then, I looked at the poll. The poll states that 79% of the people polled are “familiar” with Van Hilleary versus 48% for Ed Bryant and 25% for Corker. But, yet, the Van camp suggests that this means that Van is “the most popular candidate in the U.S. Senate race.” If I polled Nashville and found out that 95% of the people polled knew who Perry March was, would that mean that he has overwhelming popularity? That is the interpretation advocated by Van and his supporters.
Since Van Hilleary was the Republican nominee for Governor in 2002 and neither Corker or Bryant have ever headed a statewide party ticket, I would hope that Van Hilleary would have greater name recognition than them. That is all this poll is stating. Name recognition has NOTHING to do with popularity.
Bottom line, Van and his supporters want momentum. But, I have a problem when numbers are distorted and facts are falsely interpreted for the purpose of building that momentum. And, of course, Forward with Ford would love to see Van with a 29-point lead, because this would give them the best chance of winning.
These numbers are falsely interpreted, and these distortions are unacceptable.
Comments
Comment from Phil Ayres
Time: February 16, 2006, 4:10 pm
Wow, Adam, that makes it sound even worse. If 79% of the people are familiar with him and only 30% of the people like him or think of him favorably, clearly, Van Hilleary has a problem.
Comment from Adam
Time: February 16, 2006, 4:56 pm
Yup, pretty much. Still, 30% favorable + 20% unfavorable = 50% hard name recognition. That means that 29% of people recognized his name but have no opinion of him. That could be encouraging in as much as Hilleary could mold those folks. Still 3/2 is not so good on the ratio of favorable to unfavorable.
Comment from Phil Ayres
Time: February 16, 2006, 5:08 pm
I agree with you. It reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s problem in ‘08. A campaign is here to educate the voters about you. Name one thing about Hillary that you could learn about her in the course of a campaign that you don’t already know. Given that, and her 46-50% negative favorability rating . . . . that doesn’t spell good things for her. I would say the same thing about Van. He ran for a statewide office, people know him (79% according to this poll). Yet, they don’t think of him favorably. I think there is a huge obstacle here that he has to overcome.
Comment from noelle
Time: March 2, 2006, 6:32 pm
can you send me some info. on tennessee as soon as posible .this is because i am doing a report on tennessee.
thank you!
noelle curtin
Comment from Adam
Time: February 16, 2006, 3:31 pm
While I agree with what you have said, the poll also measured favorability, which I would consider synonymous with “popular.”
From the KNE article:
——
Among Republicans, Hilleary has the highest “favorable” rating with all respondents, with 30 percent having a good impression of him. Bryant got a 15 percent favorable rating, while Corker brought up the rear with 7 percent. However, Hilleary also has the highest “unfavorable” rating among the GOP hopefuls – 20 percent. Hilleary, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002, also has the highest favorable rating among Republicans – 40 percent to Bryant’s 23 percent and Corker’s 10 percent.
——-
Now the fact that Hilleary has the highest favorable rating and the highest unfavorable rating too, I think is a seperate issue…