Armstrong manager predicts "dead heat" in CO-6 GOP race

Regardless our anticipation of the carping of the talking heads, we release our poll numbers for the Steve Ward for Congress campaign.

The Armstrong campaign has released a poll showing they're "in a dead heat" with Coffman. Neither Armstrong's nor Coffman's numbers bear any resemblance to what we're hearing on the ground.

This was posted at coloradopols.com:
I received the call (for the Armstrong poll). It was definitely a push poll. Before their final question of who would you vote for, there was a question towards the beginning that was used to sway results. Don't remember the exact wording but essentially the question was if you knew Mike Coffman was giving up a high profile Republican position to pursue his own political ambitions would you be more or less likely to vote for him?
by: Billy goat @ Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 13:36:53 PM CDT

We all know polls can be skewed to reflect a desired outcome, so we don't give much credence to either campaign’s numbers.

“Lies, damned lies and statistics.” Mark Twain would likely have included polls if they were being used back then.

The only poll we trust is the one at the door. The only poll that counts is the one on August 12.

Our poll is the one we've used during all our campaigns - door to door. This is the single best measure of what actual voters are really thinking. We're talking to the same folks the other campaigns are polling, and yes, there's a bias when Steve walks to their door and asks whom they'll support. If they're undecided, he usually leaves with the promise of their vote.

Steve has walked to more than 10,000 doors. (It's a bit more, but the record keeping was a little sketchy in March and April - he was still in session in the Senate.) Of doors knocked, he's talked with about 24%. So, that gives us a margin of error of about plus or minus 1.74, meaning 95% of the time, the numbers will fall about 2 points in either direction.

Here's our numbers:
Coffman - stable in the low 20’s. He hasn't moved up or down. He has the Hillary problem: people like him or they don’t. Coffman has very high negatives at the door.
Armstrong – low teens. People associate his mortgage banker businessman label with his family name and money.
Harvey – around 10%. He's not widely known.
Steve Ward – upper 20’s. People are impressed that he's working so hard and spending so little. They think that's a good trait to have in a congressman.
Undecided/won't say: a lot.

Steve has walked everywhere in the 6th Congressional, from Simla in Elbert County, through Douglas and Arapahoe counties to Evergreen in Jeffco. We were the only campaign to show up at candidate forums in Park and Elbert counties this month. It was time well spent to talk with more than 100 voters.

An important note: Coffman released a poll in May before the CD6 Assembly, saying that Ward would get 4% of the delegate vote. Steve earned 43%, while Harvey, Pepito Castellanes, and the Armstrong and Coffman delegates split 57% of the vote.

Tracking polls can be a useful tool to detect if a message is resonating. Push polls are a good way to get a message out about an opponent. Voter ID polls can tell who's with you. Door-to-door work combines the best of all these tactics.

We are enormously grateful to the more than 90 volunteers who are walking the neighborhoods with Steve every day. They can attest to our numbers.

The only poll that counts is the one on Election Day. Please mail your ballot for Steve Ward today, or vote early at the county vote centers M-F, Aug. 4-8, or, as a last resort, vote at the polls on Tuesday, August 12. And, please, bring five more votes with you.

Christine Burtt
Cmpgn Mgr
SteveWardforCongress.com

What I find profoundly disturbing when I ask Wil Armstrong questions is he cannot spit up a coherent answer.
Ask about energy policy? He doubles back to cutting taxes.
Ask about foreign policy? He doubles back to cutting taxes.
Ask HOW he will cut taxes? He says he's campaigning to listen to the voters.
Nice.
Please, if you want to run for office, have a few solid ideas and strategies in your mind. Be able to explain them without a campaign manager talking for you.
Harvey is all about ideology. Ideology is fine, but it is not a platform for governance.
Coffman: vote for me, even though I haven't finished an elected job yet, because I was in the service.
Ward: I've been there, I've done that. I have an energy policy, I have a military policy, I have an economic policy, but I come across like an Addams Family extra.
God help me, but I think he'd get my vote. I can take odd if there's a plan I can mostly support.

Initially I liked Wil Armstrong. But the more I found out about him, the less appealing he has become. These negative attacks are what has divided our party and cost us elections over the last several years. The commercials are disturbing but the blatant lies I received on this mail piece this evening confirmed that Wil Armstrong is no longer in the running for my vote. Apparently he no regard for Reagan or his 11th commandment.
He can’t stand on his own (see Bill Armstrong, who was one of my heroes), and even with the help of his popular father he resorts to these petty attacks. I’m disappointed in Wil’s tactics; I thought he was better than that. For a man who is running on changing business as usual, it appears he is back to the old habits used by the politicians he supposedly despises.

the pendulum is swinging toward the armstrong campaign, it appears that panic has captured the coffman campaign, the once insurmountable
lead coffman had is now vanished. big mo has switched over to the armstrong side, while the coffman side scramble for answers on how that big lead just disappeared before their eyes.