Citing a new poll his campaign commissioned, Republican gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock argued Saturday that his bid to depose Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin is gaining traction.

Brock’s campaign released partial results of a survey conducted last Thursday by Ohio-based, Republican pollster Fritz Wenzel showing that likely voters favor Shumlin 46 to 41 percent. Eight percent favor three other candidates and 5 percent are undecided, the poll found.

The automated survey of 520 Vermonters has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

“It’s a close race,” Wenzel said Saturday. “Obviously Shumlin has the advantage going into this last weekend. Clearly people are open to considering change. It fits with everything else I’m seeing in polling I’m doing all over the country. People are not satisfied with the status quo.”

Neither Wenzel nor the Brock campaign would release complete results of their poll. Here’s the scant data they included in a one-page polling memo (Click here to read it for yourself):

  • Democrats favor Shumlin 74 percent to Brock’s 19 percent, with 3 percent undecided.
  • Republicans favor Brock 82 percent to Shumlin’s 11 percent.
  • Independents favor Shumlin 43 percent to Brock’s 39 percent.
  • Men favor Brock 49 percent to Shumlin’s 38 percent.
  • Women favor Shumlin 56 percent to Brock’s 34 percent.
  • 59 percent of those surveyed have a favorable opinion of Shumlin, while 35 percent have an unfavorable opinion. Six percent say they don’t know enough about him to say one way or the other.
  • 50 percent have a favorable opinion of Brock, while 29 percent have an unfavorable opinion. 21 percent say they don’t know enough about Brock to say.

Okay, now that we’ve thrown a bunch of numbers at you, let’s take a step back and look at a few reasons you should be skeptical of this survey.

Got something to say?

Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!

Paul Heintz was part of the Seven Days news team from 2012 to 2020. He served as political editor and wrote the "Fair Game" political column before becoming a staff writer.

9 replies on “Brock-Sponsored Poll Shows Him Five Points Behind Shumlin”

  1. I hope this poll is wrong…totally wrong and Brock beats Shumlin by a wide margin…enough is enough..

  2. LOL… even Republican political pros don’t take Wenzel seriously. His polls are only trotted out when a campaign desperately needs to convince their strongest supporters (and donors) that it isn’t a lost cause. (Wenzel was polling for Todd Akin when his “legitimate rape” remarks hit the fan – and was the only pollster who found him still ahead.)
    The fact that Randy Brock hires such a far right wing-affiliated pollster to conduct a biased poll in a last minute effort to advance the myth that his candidacy is viable is a huge joke.

  3. “More importantly, Wenzel’s surveys appear to skew toward Republicans. As Talking Points Memo reported Thursday,
    Wenzel’s latest poll of the presidential race in Ohio had Mitt Romney
    up three points, while most other polls had him down a few points.”
    Really Paul? Which polls had Romeny down a few points.Rassmausens has it dead even, Reuters has Obama up by ONE point ( or even with the margin of error) Ohio News Organization has a dead even tie….. No poll has Romney down a FEW points.
    Good grief, dude stop being such a flaming hypocritical partisan hack. You can’t claim someone else is skewing numbers and reporting inaccuracies while making shit up yourself. Even if it is a blog, just stop lying.

  5. The CNN/NYT/Quinni polls are all with in the Margin of Error. The Marist Poll was taken with 40% Dems and 29% Republicans (not really an even sample size and obviously why there is a 6% advantage (only 6%???)
    The fact is the polls do not support Mr Heintz. There is not a several point lead. It’s even on the major polls or within the margin of error. If Mr. Heintz wants to write a blog on why he support President Obama just do it. But it’s time to stop pretending that misstating things is really ok whether its a blog or not. Just say, CNN has a 3 point lead for Obama but that is within the margin of error…. To say otherwise is misleading and inaccurate… Of course he couldn’t bash Brock if that were the case…

  7. jcarter1 and Trudie:
    You’re both living in a dream world if you believe Randy Brock is going to win this election. You’re both ignoring history.
    It’s been a half-century since an incumbent governor lost his bid for re-election — and that was a Republican incumbent who lost to a challenger in the GOP primary (The challenger later lost to Democrat Phil Hoff in the 1962 general election, ending an unbroken century-long Republican grip on the governor’s office).
    Moreover, never in Vermont’s more than 200-year history has an incumbent FIRST-TERM governor been turned out of of office, for the precise reason that Vermont and New Hampshire are the only two states in the country where governors serve only two-year terms.
    Two years is not long enough time for any first-term governor to really put his or her stamp on the way the state governent operates. Moreover, because all of Vermont’s statewide elected officeholders (except our two U.S. Senators) must face the voters every two years, they’re effectively forced by political necessity to govern from the center.
    Randy Brock has demonstrated form the highly negative tone of his campaign that he is far too partisan for the majority of Vermonters to trust him with the keys to the governor’s office.
    The only Republican who’s a shoo-in to win statewide this year is Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott. Scott is a old-fashioned Vermont Republican in the mold of George Aiken, Ralph Flanders, Richard Snelling and Jim Jeffords — a moderate whom the right-wing Tea Party-backed firebrands now pulling the strings of the national GOP consider too liberal.
    Indeed, the Republican brand in Vermont has been badly damaged by the far-right turn that the national GOP has taken in the past decade.

  8. I never said anything about the Brock/Shumlin race. I agree that an incumbent in this state is pretty much set for life…unfortunately.
    My point was more to the fact that I am personally am sick and tired of the misleading rehetoric both by the media, and by the candidates themselves. Let things be what they actually are and let the candidates be judged by the public on who they are. Enough of the “gotcha” style campaigning and reporting and the cherrypicking of polls, quotes, etc.
    It is sad that both candidates and reporters believe the public are so stupid as to not see through it, and even sadder that many in fact are that naive.

  9. They are within the margin of error in the same direction. A single snapshot poll has a specific margin of error; as you get multiple polls with the same results, the margin of error drops dramatically to the point where (after 10+ polls in a short period) the real confidence is extremely high.

Comments are closed.