In this episode of WichitaLiberty.TV: Kansas Representative John Whitmer joins Karl Peterjohn and Bob Weeks to discuss current issues in state government, and why he supports Wink Hartman for governor. View below, or click here to view at YouTube. Episode 173, broadcast November 18, 2017.
In an email alert sent to members, Americans for Prosperity–Kansas calls for support for a Kansas Congressman who is fighting for free markets in energy. AFP–Kansas State Director Derrick Sontag wrote: “U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) is getting attacked for standing up for the free market principles that Kansas voters sent him to Washington to defend. You may have seen that T. Boone Pickens is trying to use out-of-state pressure from Oklahoma to lean on Pompeo. Pickens wants Pompeo to end his opposition to Pickens’ effort to get special tax treatment for natural gas vehicles. But Pompeo has it exactly right; Washington shouldn’t be picking winners and losers in the energy industry.”
The bill in question is H.R. 1380: New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act of 2011, or NAT GAS act. The bill provides a variety of subsidies, implemented through tax credits, to producers and users of natural gas. Last week the Wichita Eagle printed an op-ed from T. Boone Pickens which unsuccessfully attempted to make the case that these credits are not the same as subsidies.
Pickens also criticized Pompeo for failure to come out against all subsides, a criticism which is false and uninformed. On May 12th Pompeo introduced H. Res. 267, which is subtitled “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States should end all subsidies aimed at specific energy technologies or fuels.”
The summary of the bill as provided by the Congressional Research Service is: “Declares that the House of Representatives should: (1) provide by refusing any legislative proposal that includes new energy subsidy programs of any kind; (2) prohibit the expansion or extension of existing energy subsidies; (3) eliminate existing energy subsidies; and (4) begin tax simplification and reform by eliminating energy tax credits and deductions and reducing income tax rates.”
That sounds clear and unequivocal to me: refusing … new energy subsidy programs — prohibit the expansion or extension — eliminating existing energy subsidies — eliminating energy tax credits and deductions.
(The full text of the Pompeo resolution is below.)
In yesterday’s Wichita Eagle, oilman Wink Hartman, who ran against Pompeo in last year’s primary election, argued against removal of tax credits currently in place for oil companies: “First, removal of tax credits for energy companies will not only hurt the intended political scapegoats — large oil companies — but will also hit small energy companies, too, including the dozens of Kansas oil producers fighting hard to find much-needed additional oil reserves and compete with the larger oil companies for their survival.”
But as argued recently in Forbes Magazine, these oil industry subsidies, like all subsidies, “make the economy less — not more — efficient.”
Authors Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren also argue that “Many conservatives argue that the elimination of these energy tax provisions and others like them for other sectors are tax increases. They are correct in a narrow sense. But in a larger sense they are incorrect because the elimination of such tax provisions makes the tax code more neutral and a more neutral tax code is a more conservative tax code.”
They also write that these tax favors “direct private investment to the favored businesses and away from the unfavored” and that “such favors are as much a part of big government as explicit appropriated spending. Tax breaks like this constitute big government on the sly.”
To the extent that the oil business — and any other industry — has incorporated special tax treatment into their business plan, we can support a phase-out of all tax favors instead of overnight elimination. This will give the companies time to plan for the transition. But aside from this consideration, we must end all such preferential treatment if we are to have a truly sound and robust economy.
Those wishing to express support for Pompeo can do so at AFP’s Action Center.
The resolution by Mike Pompeo and co-sponsors Raúl Labrador and Tom McClintock:
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States should end all subsidies aimed at specific energy technologies or fuels.
Whereas companies continue to innovate and adapt to a growing and volatile energy market;
Whereas the primary role of the Government in the energy markets is to create an economic climate where companies can continue to innovate and compete, and thereby provide value and affordability to families and businesses;
Whereas it is not the role of the Government to favor one fuel source or energy sector over another;
Whereas taxpayers have subsidized the energy industry with grants, direct loans and loan guarantees, and tax credits aimed at specific industries for decades;
Whereas deductions and cost-recovery mechanisms available to all energy sectors are different than credits, loans and grants, and are therefore not taxpayer subsidies;
Whereas a deduction of costs and cost recovery with respect to timing is not a subsidy;
Whereas the current system of energy subsidies is opaque and unduly complex;
Whereas energy subsidies have consistently failed to bring down the price of gasoline for consumers, and electricity and natural gas for industrial users; and
Whereas eliminating energy subsidies from the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 will allow us to lower the overall rate of corporate income tax without increasing deficits: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives should —
(1) provide no new energy subsidies by refusing any legislative proposal that includes new energy subsidy programs of any kind;
(2) prohibit the expansion or extension of existing energy subsidies;
(3) eliminate existing energy subsidies; and
(4) begin tax simplification and reform by eliminating energy tax credits and deductions and reducing income tax rates.
As reported by Rebecca Zepick on State of the State KS, former Republican Congressional candidate from the fourth district of Kansas Wink Hartman may be considering another run for that position, this time as nominee of the Kansas Libertarian Party.
Zepick reported the news Saturday in the story Hartman Considering Re-Entering Race For Congress Against Pompeo and Goyle. She appeared later that day by telephone on KNSS Radio’s Jim Anderson Program, as did several others involved in this story.
Anderson’s radio program proved to be a sounding board for several issues surrounding this race. For example: All the Republican Party candidates pledged, several times, to support the winner of the Republican primary. A caller to Anderson’s radio show brought up this point, and reminded Anderson — the host of the show — that he, too, made the pledge. Anderson became agitated, at one point threatening to cut off the caller.
Anderson said that after a certain point, the campaign changed and became negative. Although he didn’t say so explicitly, it is clear that Anderson believes the negativity releases him from his pledge to support the winner of the primary. “I’m not supporting anybody right now,” he told listeners. He repeated this later in the show.
After this, Kansas Libertarian Party Chair and candidate for governor Andrew Gray appeared as a guest, calling in by telephone. Gray said the key to Hartman joining the ticket is Hartman’s ability to — currently or in the future — fit in the “Libertarian mode.”
Michael O’Donnell, a staff member in the Hartman campaign, then appeared by telephone and noted, as had Anderson, that the pledges to support the eventual primary election winner were made before the campaign became negative. True enough.
But where O’Donnell missed the mark is in his assertion that the Pompeo campaign launched the first negative attacks, referring to information made available about Hartman’s Florida home ownership and his Florida voting record. Hartman’s recent Florida voting record was first reported by me on this site.
While this information was not convenient to the Hartman campaign, it did not fall into the category of negative campaigning. This is the type of information voters are interested in. It was a matter of public record. It was all true.
O’Donnell said that the Hartman campaign merely retaliated. But it did much more than that, launching some vicious attacks on Pompeo using the techniques of negative campaigns. Hartman’s campaign escalated the attacks, culminating with a charge against Pompeo that Hartman could not back up with convincing evidence.
The pledges to support the primary winner were not made conditionally. They were absolute. In particular, candidates Anderson and Jean Schodorf need to step up and support Pompeo, the nominee. Evidently Paij Rutschman has made a financial contribution to the Pompeo campaign, but her website doesn’t endorse Pompeo.
Looking forward, O’Donnell said that he wanted to make sure that Hartman didn’t appear as a “sore loser mentality.” Losing a primary and then running on a different ticket qualifies as just that: a sore loser. And Hartman lost the primary election in a big way. Hartman’s support declined in the polls as the election drew closer. From July 1 to July 28 his campaign did not receive a single dollar in campaign contributions other than those made by the candidate himself.
Now Hartman may seek another round.
It’s difficult to see what positive things Hartman would accomplish as the Libertarian Party candidate. His political views are barely compatible with those of libertarians. Hartman seems the type of Republican that pokes fun of libertarians — like me — for their absolute defense of personal liberty (including legalization of all drugs and prostitution), a peaceful and non-imperialist foreign policy, deregulation of marriage (not prohibiting gay marriage), a welcoming approach to immigrants (instead of the fortified border that Hartman advocated during the campaign), and uncompromising opposition to corporate welfare (as reported, Hartman will receive many millions in such welfare in conjunction with his Hartman Arena).
Radical forms of libertarianism, including anarcho-capitalism or even the milder minarchism, seem beyond Hartman’s ability to grasp and understand.
The Kansas Libertarian Party has a decision to make, too. Will it embrace a candidate — one clearly non-libertarian and blemished from running a negative campaign — who can contribute millions to its cause and give the party a big boost in coverage and recognition?
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.
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.
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 resultsState 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.
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 averagedKWCH 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 resultsCandidates 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.
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 financeThe 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.
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.
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 results