From the Battle Creek Enquirer:

Tim Walberg has his own poll, and according to that one, he's leading the 7th Congressional District race.

The campaign for the Tipton Republican released the results Thursday of a Sept. 15-16 poll, only hours after the release of polling information from state Sen. Mark Schauer, D-Bedford Township, Walberg's main opponent.

In addition to the Enquirer, Chetly Zarko got the memo from the Walberg campaign.

It was conducted over September 15 and 16 by National Research, Inc., a Republican polling firm. It has a sample of 300 "likely voters" stratified geographically, and has a margin of error of 5.7 percent.

Here are the results (with 7/08-09 results in parentheses where available, also +/- 5.7):

Mark Schauer vs. Tim Walberg

Mark Schauer (D) - 40 (31)
Tim Walberg (R-inc.) - 50 (47)

Walberg Favorable - Unfavorable

Favorable - 57
Unfavorable - 29

Schauer Favorable - Unfavorable

Favorable - 33
Unfavorable - 18

Obama vs. McCain

Barack Obama (D) - 40
John McCain (R) - 55

Generic Congressional Ballot

Republican - 46
Democrat - 41

So, what does all of this mean?

First, it means that either A.) the last Walberg internal was an outlier or B.) Mark Schauer has made an enormous nine-point gain since the beginning of August. The first one isn't a big deal-- it made Walberg's people feel good about themselves for a day. The second one should worry them a lot. Though, then again, here's what Walberg's pollster says:

Despite the barrage of negative ads directed against him, Congressman Tim Walberg leads Mark Schauer 50%-40% according to our most recent congressional survey in the district, conducted on September 15 and 16 among 300 likely voters in the district. This represents a significant gain for Congressman Walberg, who was garnering 47% in our July survey. With his poll numbers now at 50%, Walberg enters the month of October with momentum.

(Emphasis added.)

That's quite a positive spin! Personally, I'd say that the significant gain goes to the one who, you know, actually gained more.

It's also important to note that, with a 10-point lead in a poll with a margin of error of 5.7 percent, Walberg is now within the margin of error (barely) in his own polling. That's not what will get the headline, though. The magical 50 percent mark is an important one to the media, and one that I don't think Walberg has reached in any previous polling. (He also didn't reach it in 2006-- he had 49.99 percent of the vote).

Last night, I wrote a partial defense of internal polling, saying that it's still useful and reliable. Now, I'm wondering if there might actually be a systematic difference between Schauer's polls and Walberg's polls-- namely, in the geographic breakdown and in the likely voter screen. Is Walberg oversampling Branch County and undersampling the youth vote? Or is Schauer oversampling Calhoun County and undersampling Hillsdale County? I don't know, and the campaigns don't release that kind of information.

The reason I wonder about that is the name recognition. Only 55 percent know who Mark Schauer is in this poll, where 67 percent did in Schauer's last poll. Similarly, 86 percent know who Tim Walberg is in this poll, where it was only 76 in Schauer's poll. That kind of difference surprises me, and makes me think someone weighted the counties differently.

Then again, both polls strike me as plausible, especially with the large margins of error. It really doesn't matter, though. There are 38 days until election day. That's more than enough time for everything to change.

Overall, it was a good poll for Walberg, but maybe a better poll for Schauer.

Labels: 2008 Election, Mark Schauer, Poll, Tim Walberg