The UW’s Washington Poll was released today.  It was conducted from October 18th to 26th, 2008, among 600 registered voters.  It has a statistical margin of error of +/-4%.  Important note:  Unlike many other university polls, students didn’t conduct this one.  A Renton-based group did.  In 2006, the Washington Poll was pretty good (especially by the usually-shoddy standard of university polls), but did overball a few initiatives.

For the following, please keep in mind that sub-demographics tend to have large margins of error, and are, much like 1-900 psychic lines, “for entertainment purposes only.”

In any case, by and large liberal causes get good news here.

President: Obama cruising
Barack Obama is absolutely crushing John McCain, 55% to 34%, with 6% undecided and a ridiculous 5% going to “someone else.”  Those votes are largely among independents, where “someone else” nets 12% and Obama otherwise leads McCain 52% to 26%.  An additional 11% are undecided.  This is the best performance for Obama in any poll this year, although it does show some hesitancy from independents.  If only there were an ideological break-down, so we could see if those undecided/”other” voters  were largely liberals or conservatives.

Obama has strong leads in the Puget Sound area (+33%), and in the rest of Western Washington (+24%).  McCain leads in Eatern Washington (+11%), but is allegedly clearly underperforming Bush’s margins.

Governor: Gregoire with moderate lead
Christine Gregoire leads by 6% here, a higher margin than other polls and one that may be indicative of a slight left-ward tilt to this one.  Gregoire gets slightly fewer Democrats than Rossi gets Republicans, but she leads independents by 1 point and benefits from an uneven statewide party split.  Gregoire leads in the Puget Sound by 17%, and the rest of Western Washington by 12%.  Rossi’s margins are in the East, where he leads by an impressive 27%.

Initiative 985 (Congestion Control) narrowly leads
Tim Eyman’s “congestion control” measure is the closest here, leading only 45% to 43%.  However, Eyman is relying on soft support–the measure trails 39% to 36% among voters who are certain.  Unsurprising, his measure breaks largely on partisan lines.  Democrats oppose by 22%, while Republicans favor by 29%, but with high undecideds.  Independents are where it’s at here, and they favor by 5%.  Interestingly, the Puget Sound is supposedly the best region for the initiative.  That’s something I attribute more to likely sub-sample issues than anything else.

This one, however, appears to be a toss-up.

Initiative 1000 (Death with Dignity): Looks to be passing
Initiative 1000, the controversial “Death with Dignity”/”Assisted Suicide” initiative, is looking strong.  Voters favor it by a margin of 56% to 38%.  Even if the poll does have a liberal tilt, that’s likely out of margin of error.  The Conventional Wisdom here appears to be supported by this poll:  I-1000 is very probably going to pass.

If that happens, it will be on the back of Democrats (+54%) and Independents (+25%).  Republicans largely say “no” (-41%).  Despite the partisan gap, the poll indicates that the initiative is much less polarized by geographic region — it even leads in Eastern Washington by 12%.

Initiative 1029 (Care Standards): A fairly sure thing
The SEIU’s Initiative 1029, which increases the professional standards for care workers, is apparently an easy choice for Washington voters.  There is some organized opposition here, but they never really broke the media wall.  Consequently, the measure leads 65% to 20%.  It’s slightly tighter, meaninglessly so, among certain voters — 55% to 17%.  All voters approve, with Democrats (72%-16%) slightly more enthusiastic than Republicans (52%-28%).

Sound Transit Proposition 1: Narrowly leads, maybe
Important caveat:  Because of the limited size of the transit district, this measure has an exceptionally high margin of error of +/-6.7%.  That considered, the UW Poll shows it leading by 50% to 43%, or a closer 38% to 36% among certain voters.  Democrats heavily approve, independents tend toward “yes,” while Republicans overwhelmingly disapprove.  The measure leads by somewhat more in King County than Pierce and Snohomish.

Of course, with a top-level margin of error so high, those subsamples are inherently very statistically questionable.

Another poll, conducted today through the end of the month, will be released November 1st.  Until then, you can see full results here.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.