On June 6, SaintPetersBlog released results of a poll for the U.S. House race, 13th district. The only candidates on the ballot are Republican incumbent David Jolly and Libertarian Lucas Overby. The results: Jolly 47%, Overby 31%, undecided 22%.
This is the first neutral professional poll ever conducted for a U.S. House race between just a single major party nominee and a minor party nominee, as far as is known. Generally when there is only a single major party candidate running, no one is motivated to spend the money to conduct a poll. This race is unusual. Generally when only a single major party person is running, the district overwhelmingly favors the party of that single major party candidate. But this district is fairly closely balanced between the two major parties. In November 2012, this district voted 50% for President Obama and 49% for Mitt Romney.
The highest share of the vote any Libertarian nominee for U.S. House ever received was 31.55%, in the November 2012 election for the Kansas 3rd district, centered on Kansas City. That was also a two-candidate race between a Republican and a Libertarian, Joel Balam. Thanks to IndependentPoliticalWire for the link.
What was the question asked by the poll?
In the poll before the special election for the district this spring, they didn’t include the party.
The Democrats really goobered this district. Bill Young had served the district for 40 years, and ran 7% ahead of Romney in 2012. The Democratic Party pushed out a local candidate who had run in 2012, in favor of an outsider who had lost the gubernatorial race in 2010. She decided not to run in the general election, and the Democrats pushed out another local Democrat, this time in favor of a candidate who had not changed his registration in time to run as a “Democrat”. The Democratic Party didn’t want a “Democrat” on the ballot against their favored independent, bacause Democrats might vote based on party. But then the independent dropped out because he wasn’t going to be able to keep working and campaigning.
I am glad that I vote in this District. I hope Lucas Overby makes history in November. I am happy to help him.