KUSA/Survey USA poll released today shows the 4th Congressional District in a statistical dead heat.
Marilyn Musgrave (R) 46 (46)
Angie Paccione (D) 42 (42)
Eric Eidsness (Reform) 8 (8)
Undecided 5 (4)
424 Likely Voters Polled, Sampling Error +/- 4.9 percentage points. Previous poll released 8/16/2006 with a 4.7 percentage point margin of error.In the sample: “Republicans outnumber Democrats among likely voters by 46% to 29%.”
Conventional wisdom is that undecided votes tend to break for challengers, rather than the incumbent, because the incumbent is a known quantity and those who will ever support the incumbent tend to have made that decision already.
Another recent poll can be found at Square State, which notes that voter registration in the District is split:
40.3% Republican
33.9% Independent
25.4% Democratic
This doesn’t, of course, necessarily mean that the likely voter numbers in the Survey USA poll are wrong, because registered Republicans are historically more likely to vote than registered Democrats and unaffiliated registered voters.
