•VA-Sen: Roanoke College's numbers on the Virginia Senate race have always been decided outliers, showing leads (often large ones) for Republican George Allen while every other pollster has seen a tossup or an edge for Democrat Tim Kaine. Tuesday's survey data is no different, with Allen up 44-36 among likely voters and 46-39 among registered voters... but I think I know why. It looks like Roanoke failed Survey Design 101, asking about horserace matchups well after some out-there questions about respondents' personal commitment to Christianity. For instance, here's one question that came just before the Kaine-Allen test:
To help describe your faith, would you say that you agree or disagree with each of the following statements:Holy smokes! And the presidential trial heat (which has Romney up a very improbable six points among LVs) is buried even further down, after questions like:The Bible is the word of God.
Christians should share their faith in Jesus with others who might not already believe.
Salvation only comes through Jesus and not through the practice of other religions.
Thinking about your vote for President, how important is it for a candidate to have very strong religious beliefs. Is it very important, somewhat important, not very important, or not important at all?These kinds of questions are almost guaranteed to prime voters against Democrats, and especially Barack Obama, who has been the target of years-long smear campaigns about his religion. Question order really matters, and if you want to conduct a survey properly, you save potentially inflammatory or leading topics until after you've asked the basic election questions. Roanoke really needs to take some serious quality control measures, because this is not a proper way to structure a poll.