Noriega Just Can't Get Ahead

Even with a poll slanted harshly in favor of Democrats, Rick Noriega still can't pull off a win. According to the latest Texas Lyceum, John Cornyn leads Ricky by 2 points. "2 points!? Russ, that's not many at all!" you might say. But listen to this from Texas Politics, the blog of the Houston Comical...um, Chronical.

Even with a voter sample that leans Democratic, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn are leading in Texas over their Democratic rivals in a new survey.

The poll released today by the Texas Lyceum was designed to sample all Texans on their opinions on public policy. The total sample of 1,000 Texans had 32 percent identifying themselves as Republicans and 44 percent saying they were Democrats.

Pollster Daron Shaw of the University of Texas said a likely voter sample got the survey down to about 500 respondents, divided equally between the Republicans and Democrats.

"That's still not what we've seen in '02, '04, '06 on election day in Texas. The Republicans usually have a few points advantage," Shaw said.

Oh well, despite the pitiful sample used in the poll, the gang over at Burnt Orange Report are as giddy as a freshman schoolgirl at a university frat party. I wonder what would have happened (and what BOR would have said) had the poll used a sample that consisted of 44% Republicans and 32% Democrats...hmmmm? Maybe it would have looked more like the latest Rasmussen Poll showing Cornyn ahead by 13 points just six days ago. At the very least, all of the Noriega cheerleaders could admit they would be well advised to be cautiously, very cautiously optomistic about a poll that is the equivalent of the LA Times and Newsweek presidential polls we saw weeks ago...a one time anomoly made possible by some crafty (or just plain stupid) poll sampling.