April 22, 2009 07:24 PM UTC

New Bennet PPP poll shows absurdity of PPP polls

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• by: twas brillig

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Just like yesterday’s Obama/Udall numbers, PPP is putting out its Colorado robo-polls. Tomorrow is Bill Ritter’s turn. Today it’s Senator Michael Bennet’s.

Bennet is such a newbie on the field, he’s a great test subject to establish how silly these robo-polling firms are. PPP is especially notorious in their home state of North Carolina–where they are known for improvising and re-doing their methodology on the fly. (The essence of solid polling is reliability and methodological predictability.)

Anyway, here’s where they have Bennet at:

41% of voters say they disapprove of Bennet’s performance so far, with just 34% saying they approve.

First, can anyone credibly say that Bennet has 75% name recognition in Colorado? Second, even if we could swallow that whopper, could 75% of Colorado voters have come up with an opinion of him as well? Many obsessive political junkies are still figuring out what they think about the guy. Third, if the poll text itself wasn’t so useless to determining actual voter opinion, there is the notorious unreliability of a robo-dial poll’s sample. Cheap methodology yields unreliable results. Plain and simple.

Luckily for Republicans, they should take heart from this as well, since the poll shows their numbers are just as bad if not worse. Much worse. Even poor Bob Beauprez, who ought to do significantly better just on name rec alone, is only even with Bennet the Newbie, and his unfavorables are higher.

Suffice to say, with $1.4 million raised in the first off-year quarter after the most lengthy and exhausting General Election in history, a weak Republican field that hasn’t even begun to form, and Bennet’s obvious plan to be doing a lot of face-to-face with voters, I’d say Rothenburg is on to something.