By james art BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – Ted James leads by one percentage point in the latest poll for East Baton Rouge’s mayoral-presidential election. WAFB spoke with political analyst Jim Engster, who says these results should be taken with a grain of salt.
RELATED: Ted James leads in the recently published mayoral poll
“Polls are snapshots and candidates live and die by them, but they don’t really tell the story that will be told on November 5, but right now it’s a good day for Ted James, he’s in first place in a reputable poll,” Engster says .
The latest survey was commissioned by FuturePAC and conducted by John Couvillon on October 12 and 13. FuturePAC is a political action committee affiliated with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC). This latest survey received 670 responses, with 67% of those responses shared via text and 33% of responses by phone.
Those results show East Baton Rouge Parish favoring Ted James at 29 percent, incumbent Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome at 28 percent, and Coach Sid Edwards at 22 percent.
“This shouldn’t be taken as gospel because we have two weeks to go and the poll is from a week ago, so basically the poll was conducted 3 weeks before the election,” says Engster.
WAFB also spoke with Dr. Edward Chervenak, who is the director of the University of New Orleans Research Center for Surveys. He says polls aren’t accurate in predicting election results, but they do give insight into how people feel.
“You can’t say one person is ahead of another or one candidate is ahead of another if you’re within that margin of error,” says Dr. Chervenak.
Another earlier study by LJR Custom Strategies showed significantly different results. This study was commissioned by Democrats for Education Reform from September 30 to October 3. Of the 500 “likely voters” named by the group, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome lists 34%. Sid Edwards is second with 16% and Ted James is third with 12%.
Engster and Dr. Chervenak say many different factors make up a strong and reliable study. For example, how the questions are phrased, how the person connects and how they respond.
“In truth, this is only a snapshot, and in fact any of the three candidates could be left out of the running,” says Engster.
Dr. Chervenak says the public won’t know which survey is more accurate until after the election.
“Studies are only snapshots in time, they are not predictive. They are not precise tools for communicating people’s preferences. They tell us how people will vote, but they don’t tell us who will vote,” says Dr. Chervenak.
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