The Republican candidate for the 5th Congressional seat (who apparently thinks that the state's motor vehicle cell phone law doesn't apply to him) peddled this piece of nonsense to reporters today.
Just-released poll numbers show that Sam Caligiuri is well positioned to win in November.
Today the Caligiuri Campaign released poll results showing that Sam Caligiuri, the Republican Nominee for Congress (CT-5), is a single point behind Chris Murphy. This amounts to a statistical tie. In a head-to-head matchup, 39% of respondents favored Caligiuri while 40% favored Murphy. This represents a huge gain for Caligiuri and a significant loss for Murphy, as Murphy was leading Caligiuri 49% to 28% in an October 2009 poll conducted by the same firm.
Adam Geller, the nationally recognized pollster whose company, National Research, Inc., conducted the poll notes that polling under 50% "bodes poorly" for an incumbent, and Murphy is under 45%. "All of the evidence points to an incumbent who is losing steam, and a challenger who has essentially closed the gap," said Geller. He added that Caligiuri "tied the score at the end of the 3rd quarter" and has "all the momentum heading into the fourth quarter."
"This is proof that Chris Murphy's support for Nancy Pelosi's far-left policies is catching up with him, and that my message and record of fiscal conservatism is resonating. Voters in our District did not want Obamacare, but Chris Murphy wants to take that legislation even further and create a public option. Voters did not want the Wall Street bailouts or the so-called 'stimulus' package Murphy voted for, and they do not want the Cap and Trade bill he co-sponsored. He is out of touch with his constituents, leaving them desperate for better, more responsive leadership in Washington," said Caligiuri. "I am thrilled that the fiscally responsible policies I am promoting are giving them hope that we can reverse this course and get our economy growing again."
Other key data points from the poll show that:
In the hard re-elect question, only 36% believe Chris Murphy has performed his job in Congress well enough to deserve re-election, while 45% think it's time for a new person.
In an ominous sign for the party in power, only 29% of voters believe the county is heading in the right direction, while 63% believe things are off on the wrong track. This number has gotten worse over the past 10 months: In October, 2009, the right direction/wrong track number was 35%-54%.
The generic ballot favors Republicans, 41%-38%. Among unaffiliated voters, the generic Republican leads 38%-32%.
In the "gas pedal/brake pedal" question, 54% prefer a Republican who will oppose Obama and Pelosi, and 36% prefer a Democrat who will support Obama and Pelosi. This represents a stunning shift from October, 2009, when 41% preferred a Republican and 40% preferred a Democrat. Among unaffiliated voters, 57% prefer a Republican and 31% prefer a Democrat.
The August 30-31 poll surveyed 400 likely voters in Connecticut's Fifth District. National Research, Inc.'s clients include the National Republican Congressional Committee, Governor Chris Christie, and Republican elected officials throughout the country.
Notwithstanding the fact that National Research Inc is a conservative outfit that's recently been accused of push polling, the fact that Caligiuri's camp didn't provide the poll's methodology or party affiliation of the laughable 400 residents polled should sound a journalist's alarm bells.
A poll conducted by a firm that works with Republican politicians found that U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy and his Republican challenger, state Sen. Sam Caligiuri, R-Waterbury, are in a statistical dead heat in their 5th District race.
The poll, conducted by Adam Geller of National Research Inc. of Holmdel, N.J., surveyed about 400 voters in the 5th Congressional District.
The poll showed those questioned favored Murphy over Caligiuri by 40 percent to 39 percent , a statistical tie.
[...]
Romero Grossman said they attribute the change to voters learning about Caligiuri and liking his message of fiscal conservatism.
At the same time, she said, voters are finding fault with Murphy for his alliance with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"He's promised to be an independent voice in the House, but he's voted with Pelosi something like 90 percent of the time,'' Romero Grossman said. "That's not independence.''
Here's what Congressman Murphy's campaign had to say about this nonsense.
With the clock ticking and Waterbury State Senator Sam Caligiuri falling further and further behind in fundraising and grassroots support, Caligiuri has revealed that he was behind a desperately slanted, negative poll recently commissioned in the Fifth District. Last week, Murphy for Congress heard from constituents who were on the receiving end of a biased, anti-Murphy poll in the field, and so it's no surprise that the results are just as slanted as the poll.
Surveying a miniscule sample of 400 voters (for comparison, the Quinnipiac Poll surveys 1,000 voters), asking biased questions, and hiding methodology, response rate, and the party affiliation of the sample, Caligiuri released phony numbers today as a way to build support for a campaign to which very few people are paying attention.
"Caligiuri has a broke campaign treasury, no statewide or national buzz, and a fractured Republican party that only gave him 39% of the primary vote. Frankly, the only way for him to generate any attention to this race is to manufacture phony results with a slanted poll. Our campaign's internal polling has always shown us with a solid double digit lead, so we know this slapdash poll doesn't add up. We got several calls from furious constituents last week after they received this poll, so we knew there was one in the field trying to create a manufactured head-to-head number. Now we know it was Caligiuri," said Kenny Curran, Murphy's campaign manager.
Meanwhile, all the major political prognosticators agree that Murphy is in a great position to be re-elected to Congress. Congressional Quarterly ranks the race as a "safe Democrat," Stuart Rothenberg rates the race as "Democrat favored," Larry Sabato puts it in the "likely Democrat" category, and Charlie Cook rates it as "likely Democrat." As of the last filing with the Federal Elections Commission, Murphy had $1.49 million in the bank; Caligiuri had $95,000.
"As proof of his real motivation behind these manufactured numbers, Caligiuri couldn't wait more than fifteen minutes to send a fundraising plea based off of his cooked poll," said Curran.
Maybe Bob Miller of the News-Times could extend the courtesy of grabbing a comment from Congresman Murphy's campaign before his online slanted article goes to print later tonight.
UPDATE: Apparently, Miller woke up to reality and updated his write-up...
A poll conducted by a firm that works with Republican politicians found that U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy and his Republican challenger, state Sen. Sam Caligiuri, R-Waterbury, are in a statistical dead heat in their 5th District race.
However, Murphy's campaign director, Ken Curran, called the poll "desperately slanted" and "negative.''
"We heard about it from voters in the district,'' Curran said Tuesday. "We heard there was a pollster calling people up, saying negative things about Chris."
[...]
in a press release Tuesday, Curran said Geller's poll results are at odds with respected national organizations tracking the race, all who call the race safely in Murphy's favor.
"Our campaign's internal polling has always shown us with a solid double-digit lead, so we know this slapdash poll doesn't add up,'' Curran said in the press statement.
He also pointed out that in last month's three-way Republican primary, Caligiuri only got 39 percent of the Republican votes.
Curran also said Caligiuri has "a broke campaign treasury'' and "no statewide or national buzz.''
According to reports filed to the Federal Elections Commission, Caligiuri has $80,285 cash on hand, while Murphy has nearly $1.5 million cash on hand.
"This (poll) is no surprise,'' Curran said. "I guess it's what you do when you're running out of money and only have 39 percent of Republican support.''
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