On September 6, Rasmussen Reports released a gubernatorial opinion poll for the Virginia race. Respondents were asked, “If the election for Governor of Virginia were held today, would you vote for Republican Ken Cuccinelli or Democrat Terry McAuliffe?”. The results: 45% McAuliffe, 38% Cuccinelli, 7% “someone else”; 10% not sure. See here for more details. It isn’t clear whether respondents were told they could choose “someone else”, or whether they had to volunteer the very idea that they wanted to vote for someone else.
As most readers know, there are only three candidates on the November 2013 ballot. The candidate whose name was not mentioned by Rasmussen is Rob Sarvis, the Libertarian nominee. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
Is it that damn hard to include one more candidate in a poll & get an accurate result?
@Jed Siple – Not hard at all. That’s part of the reason they won’t do it. They would prefer to have a less accurate result that does not include the 3rd (or 4th or 5th) candidate.
Including the Libertarian in the poll might actually increase his support, and they don’t want that.
@Bill hit the nail on the head.
Another fine example of hypocrisy in our country, claiming to believe in democratic elections, and then using every dirty trick in the book to suppress third parties. Maybe if Congress votes to go to war in Syria, THAT will be what finally wakes voters up enough to do some research and tell the “two-party system” to stuff it. But it’s a horrible way for it to happen, though, hence the dilemma. It might just take something horrible for voters to see the truth, since many seem blind to facts and reason.
Oh well. At least we still have websites like this one, otherwise I might lose hope completely.