Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas fourth district

  • Kansas polls and election results

    In the hotly contested Kansas Republican primary elections this year, polls generated a lot of interest. In two Kansas Congressional districts, independent polls did a good job of predicting the vote for all candidates except the two winners, and a candidate’s own poll may have been undermined by large voter turnout.

    In a KWCH/SurveyUSA poll of the Kansas first Congressional district, the poll accurately (within the margin of sampling error) predicted the outcomes for all candidates except for victor Tim Huelskamp. The survey predicted 24 percent of the vote for him, and the actual vote was 35 percent. This poll had three candidates tied, so it didn’t predict a winner.

    The same group also polled the fourth Congressional district. For three candidates — Jim Anderson, Wink Hartman, and Jean Schodorf, the poll predicted the exact percentage that the candidates actually received. The exception was winner Mike Pompeo. The poll predicted he would win and receive 31 percent of the vote. He did win, and his actual vote total was 39 percent.

    An election eve poll by political consulting firm Singularis had mixed results in the fourth district, but is notable in that it predicted eventual winner Pompeo’s vote total closely. The poll indicated 37 percent of the vote, and the actual was 39 percent.

    In the fourth district, Schodorf released four polls that her campaign commissioned. Each poll showed her support increasing, until in the third poll, she took the lead. In the fourth poll her lead increased.

    When comparing this poll to actual election results, we find that Schodorf’s poll overstated her actual performance by six percentage points. The performance of Anderson and Hartman were understated by six and seven points. For winner Pompeo, the final Schodorf poll understated his performance by 13 percentage points. (These polls did not include candidate Paij Rutschman.)

    In a conversation before the election with Schodorf’s pollster, he indicated several reasons why the numbers in her surveys were different than the KWCH/SurveyUSA poll numbers.

    One difference between the polls was the source of the voters called by the pollsters. The KWCH/SurveyUSA polls started with a list of households. To determine likely voters, the pollster would ask respondents if they were going to vote. Schodorf’s polls used voter lists as a source, calling only on voters who had a history of voting in August primary elections.

    Because many people look at voting as a positive civic duty, it is thought that people will overstate their actual tendency to vote, and this is a reason why polls might decide to use voter history as a selection device, especially in primary elections where turnout is generally low. It is standard practice of campaigns to use voter lists in their voter contact efforts.

    But this year voter turnout was high. The Wichita Eagle reported voter turnout in Sedgwick County — home to about 71 percent of the population in the fourth district — was 25 percent. That’s higher than the 19 percent turnout predicted statewide, and higher than in most primary elections.

    Considering Republican voters, the Sedgwick County election office reports there are 104,558 registered Republicans, and 49,967 Republican ballots were cast. That indicates a turnout of almost 48 percent, considering Sedgwick County only.

    By calling only those with a history of primary voting, many people who voted in this election would not have been sampled by polls based on voter history.

    The Schodorf polls were conducted by live operators, while the KWCH/SurveyUSA polls were automated response. This can lead to a difference in the types of people that respond to the poll.

    In the Republican Senate primary between Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt, the final KWCH/SurveyUSA poll had Moran ahead by 49 to 39 percent, with eight percent undecided. The actual totals were Moran winning with 50 percent to Tiahrt’s 45 percent, so that poll understated Tiahrt’s total by six percentage points while correctly choosing the winner.

  • Kansas primary election analysis

    At State of the State KS, Fort Hays State University Political Science Professor Chapman Rackaway contributes analysis of the statewide and Congressional races.

    Rackaway notes that the Kansas first and fourth Congressional districts were expected to be very close races, but both Tim Huelskamp and Mike Pompeo won going away with large margins.

    The big message of the night, he writes, is this: “[Jerry] Moran’s win in the Senate primary suggests that the Kansas GOP prefers a more centrist message. But Moran’s win was an anomaly. Kobach, Pompeo, Brownback, and Huelskamp suggest that the state has taken a turn to the right.”

    At National Review Online, Denis Boyles, author of the insightful book — despite its name — on Kansas politics Superior, Nebraska: The Common Sense Values of America’s Heartland, contributes (Mostly) Good News from Kansas. he starts by laying out the essential facts of the Kansas political landscape: “In Kansas, local politics is often made confusing by the powerful presence of very liberal RINOs [Republicans In Name Only]. They constitute a third party, and their half-century of influence has done some nasty work, most recently insuring the victory, twice, of Kathleen Sebelius.”

    Boyles is enthusiastic about the first Congressional district result: “But for people who like their conservatism straight up — no glass, no ice — the best news may be the victory of state Sen. Tim Huelskamp.”

    About the fourth district, Boyles wrote: “In Tiahrt’s district, a very liberal Democrat named Raj Goyle will spend a lot of his own money to try to defeat the GOP’s Mike Pompeo, a local businessman with a military career (he graduated first in his class at West Point) behind him. The Wichita newspaper, a McClatchy thing, has always been loyal to Goyle. Fortunately, fewer and fewer readers will notice.”

    But for the Kansas statehouse, the picture is not as bright. He presents a message he received from an unnamed Kansas legislator, who wrote: “Overall though, I am very disappointed … we did not change the left-wing Republican margin in the House.”

    Boyles concluded: “It’s true that the state senate and the house are both at the mercy of liberal Republicans. RINOs really do tear up the landscape.”

    For results of statewide races and other state offices, click on 2010 unofficial primary election results at Kansas Secretary of State.

  • Election eve Kansas poll

    An election eve statewide poll in Kansas indicates a likely win for Jerry Moran for United States Senate. The first Congressional district remains a toss-up between Tim Huelskamp and Jim Barnett, and it looks like Mike Pompeo is in control in the fourth district. Kevin Yoder has a large lead in the third district.

    In the first public poll for Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach has a large lead, with over twice as much support as nearest rival Elizabeth Ensley.

    This poll, conducted by The Singularis Group, LLC, was not commissioned by or paid for by any candidate or candidate committee. Here are the results:

    954 Interviews of Likely GOP Primary Voters
    All Interviews taken on Monday evening, August 2, 2010
    95% Confidence Interval, Margin of Error +/- 3.1%

    U.S. Senate
                        Congressional
                          Districts
               Statewide 1  2  3  4
Jerry Moran       44     72 38 40 19
Todd Tiahrt       37     21 32 37 63
Tom Little         3      2  4  3  2
Bob Londerholm     2      0  3  2  3
Undecided         15      5 24 18 14

Secretary of State
                        Congressional
                          Districts
               Statewide 1  2  3  4
Kris Kobach       38     30 39 50 32
J.R. Claeys       13     17 12  6 19
Elizabeth Ensley  17     13 24 24  8
Undecided         31     40 26 20 41

U.S. Congress, District 1
Tim Huelskamp      26%
Jim Barnett        25%
Tracey Mann        18%
Rob Wasinger        7%
Sue Boldra          5%
Marck Cobb          1%
Undecided          18%

U.S. Congress, District 3
Dan Gilyeat         2%
Dave King           0%
Patricia Lightner  28%
Jerry Malone        5%
Craig McPherson     2%
John Rysvavy        2%
Jean Ann Uvodich    4%
Kevin Yoder        40%
Undecided          17%

U.S. Congress, District 4
Paij Rutschman      6%
Wink Hartman       19%
Mike Pompeo        37%
Jean Schodorf      29%
Jim Anderson        3%
Undecided           6%

  • Schodorf, Pottorff claim to have cut spending

    Two Kansas Republicans — one running for re-election, the other for higher office — both claim to have led the way in cutting the Kansas state budget. These claims, however, are at odds with the facts and both candidates’ records.

    Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf is a candidate for the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas. A television advertisement states that she “led the effort in the Senate to cut over $1 billion from the state budget.”

    In Kansas House District 83 in east Wichita, Jo Ann Pottorff is seeking re-election. In a Wichita Eagle advertisement, she made a similar claim to Schodorf, stating “I forced state government to live within its means by cutting $1 billion in excess spending and voting down attempts to grow government by more than $185 million.”

    There are a few ways to look at these claims. First, both of these politicians have big-spending and big-taxing records. In any sort of legislative vote rating system that rewards fiscally conservative votes, these two women rank very low year after year. Both voted for the spending programs that grew Kansas spending so much over the last five years that cuts in the rate of growth were necessary this year.

    But these “cuts” were not cuts in actual spending. They were cuts in planned spending. The budget that both candidates voted for this year increased state spending by $200 million over the past year.

    By the way, both candidates voted to increase the statewide sales tax this year. They attempt to justify this vote by saying that if the state didn’t increase taxes, it would force local governments and school districts to increase property taxes.

    That would be the case only if schools kept spending at current levels. There are plenty of things schools could have done to save money — including implementing school choice programs which save money — but neither of these candidates considered that politically feasible. Their generous campaign contributions from the school spending lobby may have helped form their thinking on this issue.

    In the chart below, you can see that Pottorff has had a few years in which she earned respectable vote ratings. But Schodorf has not.

    Voters who desire conservative candidates should not be fooled by the efforts of both Schodorf and Pottorff to portray themselves as fiscally conservative legislators. It may turn out that their constituents prefer their left-wing voting records, and it’s the right of voters to do so. But voters should understand the choice they’re faced with.

    Kansas legislative vote ratings for Jo Ann Pottorff and Jean SchodorfKansas legislative vote ratings for Jo Ann Pottorff and Jean Schodorf

  • Final Kansas fourth Congressional district polls indicate close race

    Update: An election eve poll has been released. Click on Kansas election eve poll.

    Final polls indicate a close race in the contest for the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas. Two candidates, Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf, are virtually tied for the lead as the campaign enters its final few days.

    The candidates for this nomination and their campaign websites are Wichita businessman Jim Anderson, Wichita businessman Wink Hartman, Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo, Latham engineer Paij Rutschman, and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf.

    Schodorf campaign poll

    Candidate Jean Schodorf has released a survey that shows her, again, in the lead. The poll was conducted on behalf of the Schodorf campaign on July 29th. It shows her in the lead with 30 of the vote, with Pompeo just behind and within the margin of sampling error, at 26 percent.

    Hartman is in third place with 16 percent, and Anderson follows with seven percent. As in the past, Schodorf’s polls didn’t include Rutschman. 21 percent are undecided, which is again — as it has always been with Schodorf’s polls — much higher than produced by independent polls.

    The news release accompanying this canvass didn’t give many details, but Schodorf’s past polls conducted by the same consulting firm have been live operator surveys of 400 voters. Likely primary voters are selected by using voter lists.

    As with all polls produced on behalf of a candidate, we need to remember that surveys produced and released by campaigns are just that, and the results would probably not be released by a campaign if the results did not portray the candidate favorably.

    Kansas fourth Congressional district poll resultsKansas fourth Congressional district poll results

    State of the State KS poll

    State of the State KS in conjunction with Fort Hays State University and its Docking Institute of Public Affairs has released a poll of the Kansas first and fourth Congressional districts. The results for the fourth district are at State of the State KS Poll: Schodorf And Pompeo Take Lead In Campaign For Congress in Fourth District.

    In the poll, Schodorf leads with 22 percent, Pompeo has 19 percent, Hartman has 13 percent, Democrat Raj Goyle as 11 percent, Anderson with six percent, and 28 percent are undecided.

    This poll differs from others in that Goyle, one of the two Democratic Party candidates, was included with the Republicans in the survey question.

    This survey used a smaller sample size, and as a result the margin of sampling error is larger at eight percent.

    Commentary on the results of this survey by Fort Hays University Political Science Professor Chapman Rackaway concluded: “In short, Pompeo and Schodorf seem to be the two strongest candidates with Hartman struggling to keep up after a very strong opening to his campaign. Pompeo has established himself as the candidate of choice for conservatives, regardless of what issue the respondent self-identifies on. Schodorf’s lead among women and moderates has put her ahead, only slightly.”

    The State of the State KS survey asked many background questions, and they may be read at State of the State KS.

    Averaging the Kansas fourth district polls

    Taking the last three available polls (the two described above and the KWCH/SurveyUSA poll) we find a very close race between two candidates for this nomination. Pompeo and Schodorf lead with 25 percent, with Hartman at 17 percent and Anderson at nine percent. 18 percent are undecided.

    Kansas fourth Congressional district poll results averagedKansas fourth Congressional district poll results averaged

  • Kansas fourth district poll shows tightening race with Pompeo in lead

    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 survey shows support for Wichita businessman Jim Anderson and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf on the rise, while the numbers for Wichita businessman Wink Hartman continue to decline. The support for Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo also fell slightly, well within the poll’s level of sampling error.

    The numbers have Pompeo leading with 31 percent, Schodorf with 24 percent, Hartman with 23 percent, Anderson with 13 percent, and Latham engineer Paij Rutschman at two percent.

    Undecided voters are at six percent. The poll was conducted July 26th through 28th. The margin of sampling error is 3.5 percent.

    Interestingly, this poll has Schodorf at the same level of support as shown in her own internal poll released earlier this week. Her poll, however, showed her in first place with 24 percent support, with Pompeo in second place at 21 percent. That difference is within the poll’s sampling error.

    The Schodorf poll had 32 percent of voters as undecided, which is — and has been the case with all of Schodorf’s surveys — several times higher than the six percent undecided measured by SurveyUSA.

    State of the State KS is working on a poll that should be released today or tomorrow. This will provide another independent measure of voter sentiment as election day — August 3rd — draws near.

    Some voters have already voted. At yesterday’s meeting of the Sedgwick County Commission, Election Commissioner Bill Gale said that about 13,000 mail ballots have been sent to voters, with about half being returned already.

    In the 2008 primary election, 36,724 ballots were cast in Sedgwick County. With 6,500 ballots already returned, this means that at least 17 percent of voters (assuming the same turnout as in 2008) have already voted.

    For the fourth Kansas Congressional district, about 71 percent of the population is in Sedgwick County.

    On the Democratic Party side of this race, it appears that the television advertisements appearing for Raj Goyle are working. He trailed in the last poll two weeks ago, but now leads opponent Robert Tillman 63 percent to 19 percent, with 18 percent undecided. Two weeks ago Tillman led Goyle 40 percent to 36 percent.

    Kansas fourth Congressional district poll resultsKansas fourth Congressional district poll results

  • Kansas fourth Congressional district campaign finance reports

    Candidates for the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas have filed campaign finance reports for the first two weeks of July and some last-minute reports since then.

    The reports show Wichita businessman Wink Hartman continuing to self-finance his campaign, with $0 in outside contributions collected in July. His campaign continues to spend at a rapid pace.

    The candidates for this nomination and their campaign websites are Wichita businessman Jim Anderson, Wichita businessman Wink Hartman, Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo, Latham engineer Paij Rutschman, and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf.

    Here is a summary of FEC campaign finance reports for the first part of July 2010:

    Kansas Fourth District Republican campaign finance reports,
July 1, 2010 through July 14, 2010

               Anderson  Hartman   Pompeo  Schodorf
Contributions    2,060         0   49,347    14,891
Candidate loans      0   289,537        0         0
Expenditures     2,240   427,872  207,830    23,172
Cash balance     4,049    40,958  286,032     8,823

    Figures for Rutschman were not available at the FEC data site.

    Figures that stand out in this report include zero dollars raised by the Hartman campaign from individual contributions. All money raised during this period came from the candidate himself.

    Also, Hartman spent more than twice as much as the second-largest spender.

    Pompeo has, by far, the largest cash balance as of July 14. Normally this would be a positive factor as the campaign proceeds to election day. Hartman’s smaller cash balance, however, has little of the normal meaning associated with it, as the candidate makes frequent contributions to his campaign as funds are required. This is characteristic of self-financed campaigns.

    From the start of the election cycle through July 14, 2010, the numbers look like this:

    Kansas Fourth District Republican campaign finance reports,
through July 14, 2010

              Anderson   Hartman   Pompeo Rutschman Schodorf
Contributions  38,924    141,949  935,087       80   50,338
Candidate loans 3,275  1,563,137        0   30,000   29,006
Expenditures   37,301  1,664,129  649,054   24,464   70,521

    (Rutschman’s figures are through June 30, 2010)

    In this table we see the largely self-financed Hartman campaign outspending all other candidates. His campaign has spent more than twice as much as all other campaigns together.

    This still isn’t the entire story, as candidates are filing “48 hour notice” reports of last-minute contributions (expenditures are not included in these filings). Through July 28, 2010, here are the numbers:

               Anderson   Hartman  Pompeo
Total        5,100    348,500  35,700

    (Schodorf and Rutschman have not filed any of these reports.)

    In the case of Hartman, the total of $348,500 is all from the candidate himself. Overall, the Hartman campaign has raised $2,053,586, with 93 percent from candidate self-financing.

    According to OpenSecrets.org, a project of the Center for Responsive Politics, the average amount spent by winning candidates in 2008 for the U.S. House of Representatives was $1,372,591. Hartman is well over this figure.

    Each House district has roughly the same population, although the cost of running campaigns varies widely due to the differing characteristics of districts.

    Self-financed candidates

    As the Kansas fourth district has one candidate who is self-financed, let’s take a look at self-financed candidates and their characteristics.

    In writing about political scientist Jennifer A. Steen and her book, Self-Financed Candidates in Congressional Elections (University of Michigan Press, 2006), Bruce Bartlett wrote this:

    One of her findings is that the necessity of asking people for contributions is valuable to a candidate, especially inexperienced ones. She thinks this is mainly because self-financing keeps bad candidates from being weeded out of contention by a lack of contributions. But I think it also results because once people have given someone a campaign contribution they become invested in that candidate and are more willing to vote for him or her on Election Day and to work on his or her behalf.

    Voters also resent candidates who appear to be trying to buy an election. Self-financed candidates may be independent of special interests, but they also often appear aloof from the concerns of average voters. Having to ask people for money forces a candidate to take their feedback, thus learning about their concerns directly rather than filtered through pollsters and consultants.

    In her book, Steen writes: “They [self-financers] are also less likely to engage in what Richard Feuno calls ‘two-way’ campaigning, or interaction between the candidate and constituency, which thus entails some degree of learning and responsiveness on the candidates part.”

    Perhaps as a result, self-financed candidates don’t have a very good track record of winning elections. Steen found that for competitive U.S. House of Representative districts, candidates who are “extreme self-financers” (Hartman falls in this category) won 37 percent of primary election contests. That winning percentage falls to 31 percent in general elections.

    Voters are interested in what type of representative a candidate would make. Do self-financed candidates differ from other candidates once in office? Steen writes: “These differences do not recommend self-financers as representatives. They are quite unlike the vast majority of citizens, even citizens in more affluent districts, and they are less likely than non-self-financers to confront and engage the citizens they seek to represent.”

    Self-financed candidates usually claim that since they have a source of campaign funds independent from the usual sources — which these candidates usually describe as “corrupt” or undesirable in some other sinister way — they can act in the best interests of all their constituents once in office. But Steen found differently: “However, once elected most self-financers assimilate very rapidly to the norms of fund-raising — only a small percentage continue to resist the charms of campaign contributors.”

    Kansas fourth Congressional district campaign financeKansas fourth Congressional district campaign finance

  • Hartman ad claims remain elusive

    The claims made last week in a campaign advertisement by Wichita businessman Wink Hartman remain elusive and largely unproven.

    Hartman is running for the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas. The other candidates and their campaign websites are Wichita businessman Jim Anderson, Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo, Latham engineer Paij Rutschman, and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf.

    Scott Paradise, the Hartman campaign manager, will not accommodate my request to view the documents that he says prove the allegations in the ad.

    Paradise said he is “not happy” with some things I’ve written about Hartman. I don’t imagine he is, as I’ve written several articles critical of Hartman. But I offered to go to the campaign office and look at the documents and hear what the campaign had to say.

    What voters are left with is a last-minute inflammatory charge made by Hartman against Pompeo without having evidence of the charges. We know this is true because the campaign wasn’t able to produce evidence immediately and had to wait for the accuser to supply documents. That evidence, when examined by two Wichita Eagle reporters, appeared to indicate that Thayer Aerospace, Pompeo’s company, made “late, and in some cases reduced, payments” to one of its suppliers.

    The accuser says the company didn’t pay and drove him out of business and into bankruptcy. There’s a lot of distance between these two claims.

    We also know that the Hartman campaign ran the ad without identifying the businessman, perhaps hoping that no one would be able to identify him and investigate his claims.

    Florida issue miscast

    At issue also has been Hartman’s residency. Critics say that by claiming a “homestead” property tax exemption on a home he owns in Florida, Hartman became a Florida — not Kansas — resident.

    There’s also been discussion as to whether he filed income taxes as a Kansas or Florida resident. Hartman says he’s paid all his taxes in Kansas.

    But voting is something over which there is no controversy. As first reported on this site, Hartman most recently voted in Florida. Both he and his wife voted in Florida’s general election and presidential preference primary election in 2008.

    They didn’t register to vote in Kansas until July of last year.

    Voting by mail is popular in Sedgwick County, with 36 percent of the ballots cast in the November 2008 general election cast by mail. It doesn’t cost anything more than a postage stamp and the desire to cast your vote where you feel your political home is.

  • Schodorf poll shows her campaign in lead

    Yesterday the campaign of Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf released a poll that shows her in the lead in the race for the Republican Party nomination for United States Congress from the fourth district of Kansas.

    The candidates and their campaign websites are Wichita businessman Jim Anderson, Wichita businessman Wink Hartman, Wichita businessman Mike Pompeo, Latham engineer Paij Rutschman, and Kansas Senator Jean Schodorf.

    The poll was conducted on July 22, before the Wichita Eagle editorial board announced its endorsement of Schodorf. It shows her with 24 percent of the vote. Pompeo is in second place with 21 percent, Hartman in third with 16 percent, and Anderson with seven percent.

    The question asked of voters, according to Schodorf, is “If the election for congress were today, would you be voting for Jean Schodorf, Jim Anderson, Mike Pompeo, or Wink Hartman”? Candidate names are rotated. The poll question does not included candidate Rutschman.

    The 400 poll respondents were selected from those who had voted in the last two primary elections in the fourth district. The campaign says that “This number of interviews produces survey results that are accurate at the 95% level of confidence.” No margin of error was given for this confidence level, but in a conversation with Jim Yonally of Jayhawk Consulting Services, the firm that conducted the poll, he said the sampling error was four percentage points.

    That means that Schodorf’s lead of three percentage points is within the margin of sampling error.

    As with all polls produced on behalf of a candidate, we need to remember that surveys produced and released by campaigns are just that, and the results would probably not be released by a campaign if the results did not portray the candidate favorably.

    Schodorf’s three publicly-released polls could not have turned out better for the candidate. Starting low, each poll has showed her increasing her numbers, until this poll shows her in the lead.

    Besides being the first poll showing Schodorf in the lead, her campaign polls have always differed from the independent polls in showing a very high number of undecided voters. Yonally said he believes that his firm’s practice of using human operators to conduct the survey produces more accurate results than do automated polling systems.

    The poll also indicates Pompeo’s support increasing, while Hartman’s drops.

    KWCH Television will release an independent SurveyUSA poll of the fourth district this week, I am told.

    Kansas fourth Congressional district poll resultsKansas fourth Congressional district poll results