For more than a year a certain group of people have been making claims about the 5th Assembly District and Republican nominee Andy Pugno. We have heard that Andy would not win the primary. We have heard that Andy puts the seat in jeopardy of Democrat Dr. Richard Pan taking the seat. All of this is not true.
The most recent example is a poll being put out by normally responsible and respected Democrat pollster Ben Tulchin.
The memo (see it here) is titled “New Poll in CA AD 5 Shows Dr. Richard Pan Can Win." The memo goes on to describe a hypothetical matchup between Pugno and Pan where Pugno is ahead 44-40 on the first ballot. Why is this hypothetical you might ask. It is hypothetical because Tulchin clearly did not include all of the candidates on the ballot.
The reality is that Peace and Freedom College Student Elizabeth Martinez is also on the ballot. In Pugno’s polls that have been made public she gets about 10% of the vote. None of them coming form Pugno.
How Tulchin can put his name on this memo as relevant information in the campaign for AD 5 is not apparent.
August 10th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Fair enough point, but just to give a different perspective, can you tell me the last time a Peace and Freedom candidate got 10%of the vote is a November runoff?
August 11th, 2010 at 12:00 am
In the last general election (2008), the P&F candidate in that AD drew 7.6%. The P&F candidate in the neighboring 9th AD drew 6.1% in 2008.