Campaign Poll Comes Under Fire Congressional Candidates Battle At Debate

The Eastern Washington campaigns for Congress generated more heat than the August weather Thursday. The two Democrats debated a questionable poll that shows one of them beating the other, while the Republicans traded charges over who was being insensitive to Sen. John McCain’s skin cancer.

In the Democratic race, a poll released this month by Tommy Flynn’s campaign came under fire for being less than it seems.

Flynn has been using the mid-July poll in campaign literature and a fund-raising letter, touting numbers that show him beating incumbent George Nethercutt by a ratio of 47 percent to 37 percent, and leading Democratic rival Tom Keefe 32 percent to 15 percent.

An Aug. 3 press release and an Aug. 7 fund-raising letter says the poll was conducted by Public Opinion Laboratories for Fox News. The results first appeared on KAYU-TV, the Fox affiliate in Spokane, on July 30, with a chart that carried logos for the station and The Local Planet, a local biweekly newspaper.

But Thursday, the station and newspaper disavowed any connection to the poll.

“Fox 28 News did not commission or in any way sponsor this poll,” Rick Andrycha, director of operations and programming, said in a prepared statement.

Connye Miller, editor in chief of The Local Planet, said that newspaper had no part in the poll, either.

Flynn said Thursday there was a misunderstanding among the campaign staff about the poll. Terry Knight, a news producer for KAYU who also operates a fledgling polling firm, approached the campaign about conducting the poll.

Flynn said he knew Knight as a journalist, and assumed that Fox and The Local Planet, which sometimes publishes articles by Knight, were taking part in the poll.

“I’ve known Knight for a long time, but to be honest with you, I didn’t know he was a pollster,” Flynn said.

He added, however, that he believes the poll was done professionally.

Knight maintained that it was Flynn who approached him about conducting the poll, and said the Flynn campaign merely “used the wrong word” when describing the survey as being commissioned by Fox. As a news producer for the station, Knight wrote the script that was used to report the poll results on July 30. Placing the station’s logo in the chart was not meant to imply sponsorship, he said.

Knight said he has been polling since the early 1980s in Montana, and defended the survey of 213 people, which he said has a margin of error of 3.2 percent.

That’s not possible, said two pollsters who have worked with The Spokesman-Review over the past decade.

Bill Robinson, of Robinson Research in Spokane, said a survey of 213 people in a congressional district would have a margin of error of nearly 6.8 percent, based on standard formulas that professional pollsters use.

Del Ali, of Research 2000 in Rockville, Md., called Knight’s margin of error “impossible.” To have a margin of error of 3.2 percent with the confidence levels accepted by the polling industry, Knight needed to call about 1,000 people.

Ali and Robinson both questioned the way Knight asked questions to determine support for the candidates. Knight asked respondents whether they would vote for Flynn or Nethercutt in one question, Keefe or Nethercutt in another, and Flynn or Keefe in another. But the three candidates will appear on the Sept. 19 primary ballot together, along with Republican Richard Clear and Libertarian candidate Greg Holmes.

“If your focus is on the primary, you have to have all the candidates in the question,” Ali said.

Keefe said he has been suspicious of the poll numbers since they were first reported and is frustrated that Flynn is showing them to potential financial supporters and voters as the primary approaches.

Flynn said he stands by the poll, but agrees it should have been described as reported by Fox, rather than sponsored by Fox.

While the Democrats wrangled over numbers, the Republicans fought over a GOP headliner who is not coming to Spokane.

Arizona Sen. John McCain had been scheduled to campaign for Nethercutt later this month, but canceled last week. Clear mentioned the change in plans in a 10-paragraph e-mail to supporters last Thursday, which ended, “It’s a good day for the Clear for Congress camp.”

After McCain announced Wednesday he was being treated for a deadly form of skin cancer, the Nethercutt campaign accused Clear of insensitivity.

“Now that the truth is out, Richard Clear owes Sen. McCain and his family an apology for his ill-considered words,” said Jim Dornan, Nethercutt campaign manager. “Congressman Nethercutt has asked the citizens of Eastern Washington to join him and Mary Beth in sending their prayers to the McCain family.”

But Clear replied it was Nethercutt who was being insensitive, trying to use the McCain tragedy to political advantage.

Clear said he had no way of knowing a week ago that McCain had skin cancer. He merely assumed it was a political decision to wait until after the primary.

Dornan insisted that was the point. “He reeled that (e-mail) off without even thinking that something could be wrong. He is a blowhard that will take anything for political gain.”

Nethercutt’s staff was distorting his internal e-mail by selectively editing it down to just a few paragraphs before releasing it to the media, Clear said. The rest of the letter describes conversations he had with McCain supporters and an article in the National Journal that was critical of Nethercutt for running for a fourth term.

Dornan acknowledged that he had distributed only a portion of the e-mail, but insisted it wasn’t a distortion because it included “the entirety of his comments regarding John McCain.”