Carney campaign’s poll results not public

Momentum Analysis conducted a poll for the campaign of Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, but the results are not being made public, causing some to question why.

The Washington, D.C.-based polling firm, which has been used by Carney and other Democrats and Democratic committees in the past, was paid $10,950 on May 31 and another $11,650 on June 15, according to finance reports filed by Carney’s campaign with the Federal Election Committee.

When asked to share the results of the poll, Carney’s campaign spokesman Josh Drobnyk declined. When it was pointed out that the campaign issued a press release in August of 2008 touting the results of a poll conducted by the same polling firm for the campaign when it was challenged by Republican Chris Hackett, Drobnyk e-mailed a statement from Max Cummings, Carney’s campaign manager.

In the statement, Cummings said, “The campaign regularly conducts voter surveys, outreach and research for campaign use. This will continue throughout the course of the campaign, as it has during every election.”

A message left with Margie Omero, head of Momentum Analysis, was not immediately returned Friday.

To Tory Mazzola, the Northeast secretary for the National Republican Campaign Committee, the idea that Carney’s campaign isn’t rushing to share the results means those results aren’t something the campaign wants the public to see.

“If the results were positive, he would have made them public,” Mazzola said, adding that he’s interpreting the lack of sharing the results to mean “the polling results were not favorable for Chris Carney.”

David Sosar, a political science professor at King’s College, said these types of summer polls are often done by campaigns to see where they stand in the public’s eyes, how their opponents rate, what the hot button issues are and how the candidates are viewed on those topics.

He said campaigns are not obligated to share the results of what are deemed “internal polls” but often if they show favorable results, they are touted to the public through the media.

Sosar said that by keeping the results, and even what questions were asked, private, “obviously there’s something in there they’re just not happy with.”

By not sharing the poll with the public, it also doesn’t give Carney’s opponent, in this case Tom Marino, a Republican from Lycoming County, a free peak at where the public stands on certain issues.

“We are in a very strong position in this campaign and are confident that we are focused on the issues that families in our region care about,” Cummings said in a subsequent e-mail.

Jason Fitzgerald, campaign spokesman for Marino, said that from a campaign standpoint, there’s no doubt “if he had a lead or a substantial lead over Tom Marino, he’d release those results.”

The Marino campaign itself is set to conduct a poll in the coming weeks and the questions are now being formulated, said Dave Weber, another one of Marino’s spokesmen.

“We will release the top line findings of our poll when it’s conducted,” said Fitzgerald. He said the full results will not be shared because it would “give our opponents an indication of how we plan on running our campaign. I’m not going to give them that information for free.”

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Many are questioning why Democratic U.S. rep. won’t release survey from Momentum Analysis.

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