Rep. Frank Kratovil trails Andy Harris in a recent poll of likely First District voters in next year’s election–according to Harris, at least.
In a message to his mailing list Monday titled, “New Poll in First District Congressional Race Shows Kratovil in Serious Trouble – Andy Harris Already Has A Clear Lead,” Harris claimed to hold 52 percent of “likely voters” compared to 39 percent for Kratovil.
The poll was commissioned by Harris’ campaign and conducted by national Republican polling firm The Tarrance Group from Nov. 15 to Nov. 17. A total of 300 “likely voters” were surveyed.
“Frank Kratovil’s weakness in this district might seem startling but it is backed up by a poor image and a low re-elect score,” The Terrance Group wrote in a memo about the poll. “While Kratovil is well-known, only 43 percent of the voters hold a favorable image and 30 percent are unfavorable toward him.”
Harris narrowly lost to Kratovil last year following a heated primary race against incumbent Wayne Gilchrest. He may face stiff opposition this year from state Sen. E.J. Pipkin, who has not decided whether to enter the race.
Here’s the message Harris sent out to his mailing list:
Dear Friend:
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving this past weekend.
There is great news in my race to take the First Congresssional seat back from the tax-and-spend party of Pelosi.
Likely voters in the First District were polled the week before Thanksgiving. Like all Americans, they were concerned about the economy and what the Democrats in Washington were doing.
If the election were held today, I would beat Frank Kratovil 52-39%. Click on this link to read the original poll memo from the Tarrance Group, one of the leading national polling firms that also does the well-known “Battleground Poll”.
This is exciting. With just 11 months to go until Election Day, we all have a lot of work to do if we want to take the country back from the crowd in Washington.
You can visit my new campaign web site at www.andyharris.com Please let me know what you think. You can also sign up at the website to volunteer for the campaign. Or you can contribute to the campaign at www.DrHarrisForCongress.com
I’m looking forward to seeing you on the campaign trail throughout the First District!
andy harris is a turd, the GOP have proven themselves to be incompetent and just plain inept.
harris is of the same breed.
harris is NFG, and should keep his day job.
The Tarrance Group, which Harris calls “one of the leading national polling firms” in the letter above, is very openly a Republican polling firm. The firm’s “What We Do” part of their website says “Over the years, our total commitment to quality has helped elect more than 80 Republican governors, U.S. Senators and Members of Congress, as well as scores of state legislative candidates.”
This does not qualify as an objective poll, and therefore is meaningless, misleading, and dishonest. I for one, would never vote for Andy Harris and his extremist viewpoints.
OK n=300 is far from an adequate sample size to draw any generalizations. Andy Harris has no chance of winning the MD-1 he is far to abrasive for the MD-1 voter and is not moderate enough for the majority of the district on the Eastern Shore. If the GOP wants this seat they need to run a moderate who resides on the Shore otherwise they lose!
My husband taked with the Terrance Group pollsters and pretty quickly figured out it was a poll for Andy Harris. My guess is that they called 300 Republicans and 39% of them said they would vote for Kratovil. The biggest mistake the Republicans made was forcing out Gilchrist.
Why should the Republicans have supported a Democrat (according to his record) like Gilchrest?
In a race between a Chimpanze and Harris…..I vote Chimpanze!
Cdev – In a race between you and a bag-of-xxxx, I’d choose the bag-of-xxxx
Good thing I am not running!
Putting everything into perspective…Harris needs to show the GOP fundraising machine and PACs that HE is the guy who needs to be the Republican nominee in 2010, so they will financially back his campaign yet again. Showing this kind of disparity now supports him in this quest. He knows he might need significant Primary funding IF Pipkin runs again. In a one on one against Pipkin, Harris could easily lose because the Eastern Shore vote will not be split this time which (if I recall correctly) is the home to 55%+ of the electorate of the district. Although I can only speculate at best, I’d bet this poll focused on Western Shore ‘likely voters’.
Porter that may be ture but putting out a poll with faulty methodology and drawing incorrect conclusions based on it does not accomplish this. What it does do is make you look to foolish. Particularly in a district where many republicans voted for either the democrat or the libetarian simply because they found you so inpaletable!
I was at the debate between Kratovil and Harris held at Salisbury University prior to the election, and frankly, both of them are complete fools and totally incompetent. Lets get someone new in the mix!
Show me any politician that is anything more than a terd and I will vote for them. Kratovil has a firm moderate voting record, but has shown in his comments regarding healthcare that he definately has a more left-leaning stance. If not for fear of the voter backlash, I feel he would feel more confident in voting as such.