Can the Polls Be Trusted in 5 Key Senate Races?

Earlier this week state Sen. Michael Gianaris, the head of the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, went on Capital Tonight to dispute polls showing Democrats trailing in a handful of races that are crucial to the party's chances of wresting control of the chamber from the Republicans.

The Siena Research Institute had just released polls indicating that a trio of upstate Democratic incumbent senators were facing steep uphill battles: Cecilia Tkaczyk was down by 10 points, Terry Gipson lagged by 12 and state Sen. Ted O’Brien was behind by a whopping 25 points. The situation was even more bleak in the Republican stronghold of Long Island, where recent Siena polls had Republican State Sen. Jack Martins up by 25 points against his Democratic challenger, Adam Haber, and another Democrat, Adrienne Esposito, grappling with a 27-point deficit against the GOP's Tom Croci in their battle for an open seat in Suffolk County.

The findings of these battleground polls—five Democrats down by double digits—called into question the Democrats’ ability to win enough races to secure a majority. Gianaris countered that his party has only just begun to spend heavily on its candidates and that there would be plenty of time to catch up. Republicans have already invested far more in at least some of the races, although Democrats say they will be on a more level playing field this year.  

Gianaris noted that when Siena polled four Senate races in early October four years ago, the Democrats went on to perform much better on Election Day. Siena also projected Tony Avella losing to then-Sen. Frank Padavan by 24 points in late September that year. In November, Avella ousted the incumbent with an 8-point victory.

“There’s a lot of precedent to not pay attention to these early October polls,” Gianaris told the host, Liz Benjamin. “Our own numbers are significantly better than whatever Siena put out [Monday], so we’re feeling as confident as ever.”

But a more comprehensive look at Siena’s track record offers less reason for optimism.

One detail that Gianaris failed to mention about those early October polls in 2010 is that while the four Democratic Senate candidates did ultimately gain ground, two of them still ended up losing (Michael Kaplowitz to Greg Ball, and Mary Wilmot to then-Sen. James Alesi). 

And while Avella’s come-from-behind win in 2010 demonstrates the potential for this year’s underdogs to upset the frontrunners, his experience is clearly an anomaly.

Of the eight state Senate races that Siena polled in 2010, Avella was the only candidate, Democrat or Republican, to overcome a double-digit gap. Lee Zeldin and Tim Kennedy were also behind in late September or early October polls and went on to win that year, but each one was down by no more than a few percentage points. The other three candidates with early double-digit leads—Senators Alesi, David Valesky and Hugh Farley—were all handily re-elected in November.

The 2010 election offers the most useful point of comparison for this year’s contests. As in 2010, the ballot this year is topped by the race for governor and there is no presidential contest. In presidential years voter turnout is typically greater in New York, which tends to boost Democratic candidates. But polling and voter data from the two most recent presidential years—including 2008, the year Siena began polling state Senate races—show similar trends.

Siena polled 11 Senate races in 2008, and only one candidate came from behind to take office after trailing by double digits. William Stachowski, an incumbent Democrat in western New York, was down by 13 points yet won reelection with 53 percent of the vote. Between 2008 and 2012, Stachowski and Avella are the only two candidates polled by Siena who closed such a sizeable deficit.

Two years ago no candidate repeated the feat achieved by Stachowski and Avella. Cecilia Tkaczyk might have been that far behind George Amedore at some point, but Siena waited until a few days before the election to survey that race. (Tkaczyk, who was down by 3 points, went on to win by 18 votes.) Ted O’Brien was down by 8 points in an early poll, then won his first term in office with 52 percent of the vote.

In that historical context, positioning five Democrats to overcome double-digit disadvantages is no small task. Even if two of the Democrats were able to defy the odds this year, that success would be unmatched since Siena began polling Senate races.

Calling into question the accuracy of Siena’s polls is central to the Senate Democrats' take on their chances, yet with notable exceptions, the pollster has a respectable track record of predicting winners. Of the 25 state Senate races it has polled over the last three cycles, a total of eight featured a candidate who came from behind to take the lead by Election Day—evidence that Gianaris and others cite in warning against putting too much stock in early polls. In these cases, though, the final result was not proof that a poll was wrong per se, since it was simply a snapshot in time of a race that was still fluid.

What should have more weight are the polls closer to the election, which are usually released during the final week of the campaign. In six of the eight races in which one candidate overtook another, a second Siena poll closer to Election Day captured the shift in momentum and accurately predicted the eventual winner. Only in the cases of Avella in 2010 and Tkaczyk in 2012 was Siena ultimately wrong, giving it an impressive 23 out of 25 record overall.

Of course, sometimes polls are simply wrong. As Gianaris pointed out, Lovely Warren was down by 36 points on the eve of her pivotal primary election for mayor of Rochester last year, according to Siena, but ended up winning by 17 points. Those results, the lawmaker said, should cast doubt on O’Brien's 25-point disadvantage, especially since his district is in the Rochester area.

“I would take these numbers with a grain of salt,” Gianaris said, “and look forward to Ted O’Brien, just as he did last time when Siena had him down by 8 percent and he won by 4, I think they’re going to be off by double digits again and Ted O’Brien’s going to surprise a lot of people.”