Scientific Polling: Reflecting Reality.

From the new book by Sam Carpenter, a chapter from Making Oregon Great Again: Guide to the Grassroots Revitalization of the Oregon Republican Party (and the Defeat of the Ruling Class).

Download the entire book for free at www.makeoregongreatagain.com/book

CHAPTER 20

Scientific Polling: Reflecting Reality.

This is important: nationwide, regarding the 2018 elections, 40% of purported “scientific” polls were flat-out wrong in their predictions. Why? Because they were not scientific. They were politically driven, bogus polls.

Polls simply can’t be trusted unless they are done in-house or by a major, well-respected polling firm that specializes in…measuring reality. (That’s why they have grown to be “major.” They consistently turn out accurate results.)

In the course of the campaign we arranged for seven Triton Polling scientific surveys. Triton Polling is a northwest regional firm with impeccable credentials. At the time each poll was taken, the results were clear indications of voting probabilities of Oregon Republicans in that particular moment. To recap: in January Buehler was leading, but late in the month his numbers began to decline and, by late March, our steady upward momentum had put me into the lead, albeit a very slight one. Our momentum was steadily upward while Buehler’s was declining.

Buehler certainly saw this happening via his own internal polls*

Here are the precise details: On March 26th, Cuff polled at 4%, down from 6% one month prior. And in that same March 26th poll, Wooldridge had dropped to 4%, down from 8% one month prior. In that same time-frame, Buehler had dropped from 31% to slightly less than 23%.

At this point, March 26th, I polled at just over 23%, up from 18% the month before. This is where I took the lead over Buehler.

These polls were not contrived polls like Wooldridge’s early iCitizen online survey or his later Dorchester prom-king poll, both of which falsely showed him far in the lead.

In my first conversation with Lee at Triton Polling, I told him, “We are not interested in using polls to promote my candidacy. What we want to know is reality. No wishful thinking. Don’t sugarcoat anything. We need to work with facts whether we like them or not.”

Lee promised complete objectivity and without exception fulfilled that promise over the duration of the campaign. I enjoyed working with his first-class professional team as they made sure the polls were accurate representations of voter sentiment…whether I personally liked the results or not.

An important part of each survey was to precisely sample via population density. To illustrate, there were many more samples taken in Multnomah County than in Union County. Our commitment to correct sampling went right down to Democrat/Republican and male/female ratios, and beyond. You can see how the sampling was scientifically performed by looking at the data at the end of each polling report (see Appendices F through L).

Here are the results of five of those seven polls, the ones in which we asked Republican voters “how you would vote, if you were voting today?” Also listed are the actual election results on May 15th. The active campaign season stretched from Fall 2017 through May 15, 2018:

• October 9 (Triton: name recognition only. See appendix F): Buehler 64%, Carpenter 34%, Cuff 23%
• November 9 (Triton. Appendix G): Buehler 24%, Carpenter 12%, Cuff 2% (Wooldridge not included as he was not in the race yet)
• February 26 (Triton. Appendix J): Buehler 31%, Carpenter 18%, Wooldridge 8%, Cuff 6%
• March 25 (Triton. Appendix K): Carpenter 23.1%, Buehler 22.9%, Wooldridge 4% (Cuff soon withdrew from race to endorse Woolridge)
• April 22 (Triton. Appendix L): Buehler 39%, Carpenter 24%, Wooldridge 12%
• May 15 (official election results. Appendix M): Buehler 46%, Carpenter 29%, Wooldridge 20%

So, as we had predicted months before, and as was confirmed by the March 25th Triton poll, we had surged from being way behind Buehler to slightly ahead. But that slight edge was a precursor: Our momentum was consistently building; our upward trend steady and powerful. Meanwhile, Buehler’s numbers had gone negative, and Wooldridge’s and Cuff’s had hit bottom. (What can’t be seen on this chart were – starting in March – the standing ovations we received just entering a meeting room without having said a word, and the packed-house raucous flag-waving meetings that invariably followed).

As I took the lead in the March 25th poll, it was exactly four weeks before the mail-in ballots would be sent out to voters.

Note this: By April 1st, after we had taken the lead in the scientific polls, Buehler had expended $2,500,000 while our campaign had expended 1/10th of that, $250,000. Our campaign spending reflected our ability to do more with less, and to manage budgets carefully. But more than that, it demonstrated that our message was on-target and we were reaching voters.

The grassroots were on fire! We were going to win the nomination, no problem.

But then, two weeks out from the ballot mailings, Buehler unleashed his slime campaign. More about that in following chapters.

But for now, let’s further analyze the chart. When Buehler’s surprise monkey-wrench mud-slinging campaign began about April 10th, Buehler’s and Wooldridge’s falling trajectories immediately reversed sharply upward. At this point my trajectory also continued upward, but only slightly, as Buehler’s and Wooldridge’s aligned attacks cannibalized votes that had been headed my way.

Those attacks wound up having their desired effect in synchronization with the Wooldridge vote-splitting campaign. The two seemingly unrelated tactics were beautifully choreographed. Diabolical as it was, Buehler and his consultants had this all figured out…although with this scheme they were also dooming Buehler in the general election.

On the chart, note the dashed lines showing the probable primary election results if Buehler’s million-dollar smearing campaign had not happened. (And note that in these projections we are being generous to Buehler and Wooldridge, as we show their polls recovering a bit from their steep downward trajectories in March.)

The Oregon grassroots vote was, and is, as powerful as ever, but my Republican Ruling Class primary opponent’s election victory was secured through vote-splitting manipulation, personal attacks on me, and big dollars to fuel it all. This was an enormous loss to hardworking grassroots Republicans all across Oregon because a nominee was selected who could not possibly win the general election.

The Oregon Republican Party could have stopped it from happening.

How could any highly-qualified conservative candidate envision running for statewide office in Oregon while the ORP leadership remains the way as it is now? Why would anyone want to go through all this, in front of family and friends?

It’s time for an ORP house cleaning.

It really is this simple: Republican grassroots voters can win general elections if the right candidates are screened, cultivated, encouraged, protected and promoted by a statewide Oregon Republican Party that, under new leadership, will support our President and represent 90% of the Republican Party, not just 10%.

Blaming our continual losses on alleged Republican voter antipathy – or a few blue counties – is a distraction from reality.

Maybe re-read Part One. It will make even more sense to you now.

The one-layer-deeper reason we haven’t won statewide races has been exploitive and depraved, but fixing this roadblock quickly is possible. We’ll talk about how we can do that in Part Three.

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