A new poll is out from University of Guam Dr. Ron McNinch's class. While we commend Dr. McNinch's students for taking the time to do these polls, we here at 671Politics (again) have several issues with the mechanics of the poll.
According to the news release, the students polled 240 individuals about their selections for Congressional Delegate and the Guam Legislature. 240 is a rather small pool of people, even for Guam. In fact, polls taken on the mainland regularly poll on average 500 individuals or more so as to ensure a much better representation of the opinions of the voters. There was also no distinction made (if so we apologize for overlooking it) between registered voters and likely voters or Republican voters or Democratic voters.
The second issue we have with this poll is that once again, there was no head to head matches in the Congressional race. Let us emphasize a point we made in an earlier post: VOTERS WILL NOT BE CHOOSING COME NOVEMBER FROM AMONGST BORDALLO, DIZON, BLAS, AND DIAZ. The primary will eliminate ONE DEMOCRAT, so asking the 240 individuals who they will vote for Delegate without dividing it into head to head matches is somewhat useless, other than to show incumbent Bordallo (D) with a overwhelming lead. It could be possible that if Dizon loses, some of his supporters may gravitate towards Republican Frank Blas or the same can be true if Bordallo loses and some of her supporters may head towards the other party. This is why head to head matchup questions are important. Polls taken in the mainland for congressional primaries do not bunch all political candidates in one question, so hopefully a poll will be taken that will look first at a Bordallo versus Dizon matchup, and a Bordallo versus Blas versus Diaz or a Dizon versus Blas versus Diaz question.
*Even though we have issues with the poll, those issues obviously only apply to the Delegate race. We will be factoring in the results of the poll for the Guam Legislature and we will update our Legislative Predictions soon.
