Jackson Free Press

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JFP Interviews with All Democratic Candidates for Mayor

March 5, 2009—Verbatim from pollster Brad Chism:

Here are the results from our Friday survey. We've enjoyed hearing from many of you and reading the on-line commentary about our work. If these figures are encouraging to you and your favorite candidate, please don't coast the last two days. And if these figures are not good news to you and your candidate, then there's still time to influence the only survey that really counts—the one on Tuesday. This is a monumental election in shaping the future of our city. So please to all you can in the time left....

May 1st Zatapulse Survey

Crisler 26

Fair 4

Hohrn 11

Harvey Johnson 26

Melton 18

Other Candidate 7

Undecided 8

Be careful when reading these numbers

· This survey occurred before the weekend canvassing, church appearances and talk show radio. Many voters be making up their minds the last 72 hours.
· Most of the paid media dollars were spent in the last week of the campaign so candidates with a war chest at the end should get a boost.
· The actual votes for the second tier candidates (not mentioned in the survey language) will add up on election day. It's likely that the two candidates making the runoff won't have a majority of votes between them.
· The sample was 64% Black, and 31% white. (balance of Asian, Latino and self-described "other")
· Women are oversampled
· Older voters are oversampled.

E-mail me at [e-mail missing] if you want the pivot tables. (Don't read too much into the ward by ward data—sample sizes too small to draw sweeping conclusions. )

Please read on for important additional information.

Why we are doing this: We have several friends in the Jackson Mayor's race but no candidates who are clients. We are intrigued by the dynamics of this race and have decided to do some survey work for public dissemination.

About the survey. This sample of 521+ voter phone households is a rough approximation of historical voter registration and turnout. While we do track the respondents self-identification by age, race, and gender we have not weighted the survey by these demographics or by voter frequency. The pivot tables allow you to drill down by demographics and ward. We caution you not to draw too many conclusions when you do as these sample sizes are small.

Methodology We used an interactive, automated call with keypad responses to record results. The numbers are scrambled and randomly dialed with a quota of respondents by ward. As the name suggests, our ZATAPULSE takes the pulse of the electorate. It is not an "MRI". It is a useful tool for short surveys of this nature and we have used it for more than 200 races across the country. We employ a similar methodology as Survey USA or Rasmussen. Still, the tool has limits. We caution you that this race is fluid and that each candidate is likely to have a more robust, internal poll. Nonetheless, we are confident that this is the most accurate, timely information that is publicly available.

About Zata3 Zata|3 is a political consulting firm for Democratic candidates and progressive causes. Company President Brad Chism splits time between his Washington, DC and Jackson, MS offices. For each of the last three years, Zata|3 had won more awards by the AAPC for its telephone voter contact programs than any other firm in America. For more information, go to http://www.zata3.com

Finally, to repeat to very important points.

First, as the name implies with ZataPulse. "We are taking the Pulse of the electorate, not performing an MRI."
Secondly, this is the best info you'll get for free.

Brad Chism
202.386.6024 (o)
601.918.4563 (c)
202.318.0332 (f)
http://www.zata3.com

Previous Comments

ID

146771

Comment

Jim Craig makes an obvious but important statement on his blog about defeating Melton Tuesday (as well as about why people complaining when polls aren't falling their way don't get a lot of weight with this news outlet): Clarion-Ledger Poll Echoes Zata 3 Data: The "Anyone But Melton" Choices are Crisler and Harvey Johnson There has been no small controversy about the "ZataPulse" polls on the Jackson mayoral race. Various blog posts (from mostly anonymous sources) claimed that the methodology employed by Zata 3 President Brad Chism rendered the results inaccurate and misleading. Today, Chism's critics may be silenced. The Clarion-Ledger published the results of a poll conducted by the Southern Research Group. [...] The numbers are different, but the basic gist is the same: Former Mayor Johnson and Councilman Crisler have a decided edge in keeping incumbent Mayor Melton out of the second promary. Horhn and Robert Johnson sympathizers need to re-think their position -- taking votes away from Crisler or Harvey Johnson may have the result of allowing Melton to catch up with one of them. And in a second primary, anything can happen.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2009-05-04T22:50:44-06:00

ID

146839

Comment

Brad Chism sure showed 'em tonight, eh?

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2009-05-05T22:00:28-06:00