Barney Frank Gambles on Making it To the Finish Line
A poll released by Providence, Rhode Island’s WPRI appears, on the surface to give Barney Frank a 12% lead over his Democrat turned Republican challenger, Sean Bielat. However, that may not be the case, which is why Mr. Frank is going above and beyond in advertising throughout the district and Mr. Bielat is looking more confident and Congressional by the minute.
When one looks at the marginal’s of the race, posted here on WRPI’s website there are questions that come into play. For example: in a district where, in 2008, (MA Sec. of State) Frank won the district by the following vote count: Total votes cast in the 4th: 315,734, Frank took 203,032 votes, Earl Sholley (R) took, 75,571, Sue Allen (I) took 19,848, Other, received 337 and Refusing or Undecided cast blank ballots numbering: 16,946.
Taking a look at the breakdown of the district (MA Sec. of State) by party affiliation by County and then by city/town (with the entire City of Fall River included, as no breakdown of ward appeared to be available on the Secretary of State’s Website, one finds the following: In this district, the total registered voters by party affiliation in 2008: 455,915, Total Democrats: 178,856, Total Republicans: 48,139, Total Unenrolled: 225,743, Green and other Party affiliations: 514, and 709 respectively. Therefore, it would be safe to say that, even including half of Fall River that is not part of the 4th. The Unenrolleds lead in the District. 39% are Democrats, 10.5% Republican and 49.5% unenrolled.
Breakdown by County and City - Voter Affilaition District 4, click to enlarge
First, based on the aforementioned 2008 statistics and race outcome by statistic, not only did every registered Republican in the district, but independents as well, voted for the Republican candidate, Earl Sholley – this was an early indication that Frank has significant problems going into 2010.
Secondly, the Rhode Island Poll has a current makeup of 42% Democrats, 16% Republicans and 40.3% unrolled, which, would, unless there has been a surge towards the Democrats and Republicans in the Commonwealth, skew the poll decidedly in favor of the Democrat (specifically if based on the fact that the 6% of Republican’s polled would vote for Frank) and discounting the unenrolled vote by 9 points, with unenrolleds generally breaking for the conservative, one can, therefore, add an additional 6 points to Mr. Bielat (and that is conservative). With a 5 percent plus or minus margin of error, this poll conservatively (by way of numbers only) tweaked for actual district voter makeup and past trends (not including the fact that 56% of this, one of the most heavily Democrat districts in the state, voted for Scott Brown over Martha Coakley), one can bank on the fact that Mr. Bielat is in either a statistical tie and or leading Barney Frank by 5 points.
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