The Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics has contracted with SurveyUSA to conduct a statewide poll in Indiana.
The press release:
Secretary of State Race
Currently the Democrats have a slim majority in the Indiana House of Representatives. One of three things will be true after the election on November 2nd. Either the Democrats will continue to have a majority, the Republicans will have a majority, or neither party will have a majority. After a failed experiment in shared control that resulted from the 1988 election, legislation was passed that stated that the party that wins the election for secretary of state in midterm elections would have control when neither had a majority.
When 1,600 likely voters in Indiana were asked who they were voting for in the race for Indiana Secretary of State, Republican Charlie White received the support of 51% of the voters while Democrat Vop Osili received 31% and 5% were undecided. Although White did not have a majority of support in all demographic categories (gender, age, party ID, education and religiosity), he does hold a lead in all demographic categories except strong Democrats, Democrats, and independents who lean Democrat. His support was uniform throughout the state (north 50% to 32%; central 52% to 30%; south 52% to 33%). Among the respondents who have voted already, White is ahead 53% to 32%.
The Libertarian Party candidate is Mike Wherry. While Libertarians would like to win this race, they know that they need to have the support of 2% of the electorate so that Libertarian candidates can have automatic ballot access for the next four years. Seven percent (7%) of the respondents said they were going to vote for Wherry and 3% of the respondents who had voted already said they had voted for Wherry.
About the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics
The Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics is a non-partisan organization that helps the people of Indiana understand the role of politics and government in their daily lives. By doing this The Mike Downs Center hopes to encourage participation in political and public processes the same way its namesake Dr. Michael C. Downs did for more than 34 years. The Mike Downs Center is located on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW).Statement of Methodology
This SurveyUSA poll was conducted by telephone. Live operators asked for and secured the cooperation of a designated respondent in each household. Then, a recorded voice was used to ask the survey questions. Respondent households were selected at random, using a registration based sample (RBS) provided by Aristotle, of Washington DC. All respondents heard the questions asked identically. The calls were conducted from 10/21/10 through 10/25/10. The number of respondents who answered each question and the margin of sampling error for each question are provided. Where necessary, responses were weighted according to the voter registration database. In theory, with the stated sample size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results would not vary by more than the stated margin of sampling error, in one direction or the other, had the entire universe of respondents been interviewed with complete accuracy. There are other possible sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed, question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a likely voter). It is difficult to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. Fieldwork for this survey was done by SurveyUSA of Clifton, NJ.
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