KWCH Television in Wichita and SurveyUSA have released a poll of candidates seeking the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas. The poll, conducted July 11th through 13th, shows Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo maintaining a narrow lead over his chief rival, Wichita businessman Wink Hartman.
The support for both of the top two candidates, however, declined as Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf and Wichita businessman Jim Anderson picked up support.
The poll shows Pompeo at 32 percent, Hartman at 31 percent, Schodorf with 16 percent, and Anderson moving up to garner nine percent of the vote. Latham engineer Paij Rutschman registered one percent in her first appearance in a SurveyUSA poll.
Undecided voters were nine percent.
In analyzing the results, SurveyUSA noted that Schodorf has doubled her support over the past three weeks among women and self-described moderate voters. Further, “Today, Schodorf leads among moderates and among the relatively small number of GOP primary voters who oppose the tea party movement, and has effectively tied the front-runners among seniors, pro-choice voters, and those voters who do not own guns. Any outcome remains possible.”
These results are not surprising, as all along Schodorf, with her moderate positions, has set herself apart from the three male candidates, who are all self-described conservatives.
The truly surprising — I think we can safely say shocking — results were on the Democratic party side of this contest. Raj Goyle, whose campaign is expected to report a campaign fund balance of some $1.2 million when reports are filed later today, has fallen behind Robert Tillman. SurveyUSA reports Tillman polling 40 percent, while Goyle registers 36 percent. 24 percent are undecided.
In the same poll three weeks ago, Goyle led Tillman by 42 percent to 32 percent.
In the Democratic poll, SurveyUSA warns that this is “movement which may or may not be statistically significant.” But the fact that Tillman has been registering such a high percentage of support and is now in the lead must be a huge blow to the Goyle campaign.
These results are trouble for Democrats nationally, too. Goyle is one of 26 candidates showcased by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in its “Red to Blue” initiative.
Goyle started television advertising within the past week. Tillman, on the other hand, recently passed out business cards promoting his campaign, not having even the traditional glossy “palm card” for campaign literature. As of today no website for Tillman can be found, although I have noticed yard signs for his campaign.
Kansas fourth Congressional district poll resultsUpdate: A Wichita Eagle profile of Tillman is at Tillman running for Congress to support President Obama’s policies. A profile of Goyle is at Goyle pushes bipartisan solutions.