By james art With two weeks to go before the final vote in Baton Rouge’s mayoral primary, some polls appear to be pointing to a tight race between two Democrats — but it’s not a unanimous opinion.
A poll commissioned by FuturePAC, a political action committee, found a significant jump from Democrat Ted James. An Oct. 12-13 poll by local pollster John Couvillon showed him with a narrow lead over incumbent Sharon West Broome.
The poll found James on 29%, up six points from Couvillon’s late August poll, ahead of Broome’s 28%. That poll was funded by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber for their mayoral debate and found that Republican Sid Edwards, who Couvillon pegged at 23 percent two months ago, is now at 22 percent, the poll said.
As mentioned on the FuturePAC website, the group is “a Baton Rouge Area Chamber Political Action Committee,” focused on economic development in Baton Rouge.
James said he’s seen the recent poll and said it shows voters are “finally focusing on the race” and see him as a candidate to tackle crime, disease and early childhood education, as well as jumpstart the local economy .
“Democrats and Republicans want to solve these problems. That’s what these polls show,” James said.
The FuturePAC poll represents a stark contrast to another public poll of the Sept. 30-Oct. 3 race commissioned by Democrats for Education Reform.
The DFER poll, conducted by LJR Custom Strategies, found Broome at 34%, Edwards at 16% and James at 12%.
Broome’s campaign said it believes the DFER poll more accurately represents the current state of the race.
Results of the FuturePAC poll conducted by John Couvillon on October 12 and 13, with 670 respondents and a 3.8% margin of error.
ME Cormier, who is leading Broome’s re-election campaign, said the poll was a “distraction” aimed by “donors and BRAC management to defeat the mayor even though our economy is the strongest in the state”.
Cormier said every other poll showed Broome leading.
“Our campaign will continue to speak to voters on the issues that matter – reducing crime, protecting taxpayers on the St George issue and improving the quality of life for everyone in the parish,” she said.
Results of the Democrats for Education Reform poll of Baton Rouge mayoral candidates from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3. The 26-question poll covered 500 likely voters with a 4.3% margin of error.
Methodology and results
University of New Orleans assistant professor and director of the research center Edward Chervenak said both polls are robust, with strong sample sizes, but he prefers the methodology of the DFER survey, which Broome says leads the way.
“Methodologically speaking, it uses live interviewers and randomly selects respondents to interview,” Chervenak said. “For my money, using live interviewers and using the principle of randomness throughout the study makes it much stronger.”
While FuturePAC’s survey had a larger sample size, 67 percent of its responses were via text message, which Chervenak says shouldn’t be counted, but believes can sometimes lead to weaker results.
Still, FuturePAC’s numbers are more in line with recent numbers from Louisiana pollster Greg Righeimer.
Rigamer is following the race himself, not for any candidate, but for a group of Baton Rouge business leaders.
Between two songs — one on Sept. 30 and the other on Oct. 16 — Rigamer also saw a surge from James, who jumped by six points in the period. Rigamer’s sample of 600 was slightly below that of the FuturePAC poll, which polled 670 likely voters with a 3.8 percent margin of error.
“The benefit of tracking is that you can observe trends over a period of time, and one study confirms the other,” Rigamer said.
He also explored the runoff scenarios between the three candidates, which he said produced clear results.
“It clearly, clearly looks like it’s headed for a runoff, and I don’t think Edwards is going to get to a runoff, so I think it’s going to be between Ted and Sharon,” he said.
Even if Edwards makes it to the runoff, the polls don’t look good for him in a head-to-head matchup against any Democrat, Rigammer said.
While no poll strongly favors Edwards, his campaign said other polls show him as the frontrunner.
“Research is everywhere so late in the game. There are still so many undecided voters. We have polls that show us both number one and number two,” Edwards said, adding that he thinks the FuturePAC poll is an outlier.
“We have always maintained that this election is very close. The winner on November 5 will be the candidate who votes,” he said.
Runoff scenarios
Couvillon also polled all three-candidate runoff scenarios in its recent FuturePAC survey, as a Dec. 7 rerun seems likely.
In the Broome-James runoff, the poll had 43% for James and 33% for Broome, with 24% undecided.
Between Broome and Edwards, 50% supported the incumbent ahead of Edwards, who came in at 38%.
Those polled support James 52% to Edwards’ 33% in the runoff.
Of FuturePAC survey respondents, 53% identified as white and 41% as black, while 47% identified as Democratic voters, 31% as Republican voters and 22% identified as independent.
The Broome-led DFER poll asked for Broome-James and Broome-Edwards runoff scenarios, but not a James-Edwards runoff.
The DFER poll shows 37% for a runoff to James’ 18%. Against Edwards, Broome garnered 41%, while her Republican opponent received 21%.
Early voting began in Louisiana on Friday and will remain open until October 29. Voters can find where to vote early on the Secretary of State’s website.