Hey everybody! Did you see? Did you see the new Cook Political Report claiming that David Jolly is leading Republican Byron Donalds in the polls?
Democrat fundraisers hope you did.
That’s because if they can’t convince themselves and their base that their Charlie Crist clone isn’t viable against Donalds in November, there’s a real danger that the next two months turn into a political snoozer, and that doesn’t bode well for down-ticket Florida Democrats, either.
A non-viable David Jolly is bad for Florida Democrats. It’s bad for national attention. And it’s especially bad for anyone hoping to persuade Democratic donors to dump millions of dollars into Florida rather than more inviting battlegrounds elsewhere.
Which helps explain the absurd press release sent by the Jolly campaign on Thursday, with a carefully-crafted headline trumpeting: “Cook Political Report shifts Florida Governor’s Race in David Jolly’s direction.”
Jolly’s campaign says Republicans are crossing over in “profound numbers.” And Democrat-friendly coverage has raised the tantalizing possibility of another nail-biter like 2018.
At least, that’s the sales pitch. Now it’s time for the fine print.
Jolly is “leading” Donalds.
The Democratic Governors Association’s poll, conducted by Hart Research Associates, puts Jolly at 46 percent and Donalds at 45 percent. But the poll has a four-point margin of error.
That’s not evidence of a Jolly lead. It’s a statistical tie. And in a poll paid for by Democrats with a desperate agenda and zero interest in truth.
The poll is also a statistical outlier: previous polls have Donalds leading comfortably. The two most recent public polls immediately preceding this Democrat doozy had Donalds ahead by seven points and five points, respectively. In short, this Democrat-funded poll makes it an outlier worth treating like toilet paper. Until they post the cross tabs, complete with geographic and demographic data proving they didn’t cherry-pick the sample, it’s not worth the paper its printed on.
Eighteen percent of Republicans are voting for Jolly!
Oh, really?
Hart says Jolly captures an extraordinary 18 percent of registered Republicans, while Donalds gets just 7 percent of Democrats.
That’s the engine driving Jolly’s supposed competitiveness. But there’s a big hole in the sample: Hart conducted the poll August 10 through August 13, in the heat of Florida’s Republican primary held several days later on August 18. So the evidence that nearly one-fifth of Republicans are abandoning the Republican nominee comes from Republicans interviewed before Donalds was the Republican nominee. A sample collected when many of those Republicans may have hoped their answers helped their preferred Republican candidate. But it sure doesn’t mean they won’t vote for Donalds now.
Aside from that glaring deficiency, the “poll” gives us remarkably little information with which to evaluate that 18 percent crossover claim.
The entire statewide survey contains just 600 likely voters. The poll released no detailed Republican crosstabs in its two-page memo showing who these “Jolly Republicans” are, where they live, how conservative they are, how regularly they vote, or how firm their support is. The memo merely tells us that 18 percent exist, apparently in the hope that at least some Democrat donors buy the claim.
But Cook Political Report just moved the race toward Jolly!
Eh…nah. Cook still has Donalds as the likely winner. Based solely on this oddball outlier poll, Cook moved the needle, already pointing far towards Donalds, from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Republican.”
The Jolly campaign nevertheless issued their hyperbolic press release headlined, “Cook Political Report Shifts Florida Governor’s Race in David Jolly’s Direction.”
Note also that Cook also says the race “could possibly become competitive.”
That’s right, Democrat donors. Put the checkbooks away. You’re being swindled.
Bottom Line: Jolly’s entire strategy depends heavily on peeling Republicans away from Donalds, with zero evidence that it’s working
Jolly is a former lobbyist and Republican Congressman who was later defeated by Charlie Crist himself because he apparently wasn’t squishy enough. But he’s learned his lesson and now is running as a Democrat with perennial Democrat candidate Gwen Graham. His only shot at success is to explicitly sell his “Republican” past as the mechanism for peeling away GOP voters and independents.
Right now, the only numerical evidence to support the theory’s soundness comes from this lone Democratic poll claiming an extraordinary 18 percent Republican crossover, measured at a time when Republicans were still duking it out amongst themselves to choose their own nominee.
Even if that claim were true, Jolly finds himself, at best, in a statistical dead heat with Donalds.
To my fellow Republicans: Don’t get cocky.
To Democrat donors: Don’t be fooled into wasting your money by this nonsensical “poll.”
