MCRI A Sure Thing? I Hope He’s Right…

From today’s Michigan Daily:

One political consultant with a history of correctly predicting ballot proposals while others miss the mark is predicting a dim future for affirmative action in Michigan.

Proposal 2 will pass by a large margin tomorrow despite a recent poll showing the ballot proposal trailing by 10 percentage points among Michigan voters, said Mark Grebner, founder of Lansing-based Practical Political Consulting, in an interview with Inside Michigan Politics.

Grebner said that although he opposes Proposal 2 personally, he is confident it will pass with 60 or even 70 percent of the vote.

His prediction sharply contradicts recent polling, which has shown Proposal 2 even or trailing in the polls. The Detroit Free Press released a poll yesterday showing 49 percent of voters opposing the ballot initiative, 39 percent supporting it and 12 percent still undecided.

But Grebner said it is impossible to accurately poll ballot proposals using phone polls….

He said ballot proposal polling is fundamentally different from candidate polling because proposals require voters to interpret ballot language — not just pick a candidate.

….

Although he did not offer an exact prediction of the results, Grebner said his results show that white voters, who compose about 85 percent of the Michigan electorate, will overwhelmingly vote in favor of Proposal 2. He also said there is almost no correlation between a person’s political party affiliation and how they will vote on Proposal 2….

Grebner is so confident that Proposal 2 will pass that he urged its opponents to stop using resources campaigning against the proposal, calling it a lost cause.

I hope he’s right.

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  1. Curtis Crawford November 6, 2006 at 8:29 pm | | Reply

    I hope so too.

    The article states that “recent polling . . . has shown Proposal 2 even or trailing in the polls.” The latter is true of the Detroit Free Press polls, in which the question probably characterizes 2 simply as banning affirmative action.

    However, the EPIC/MRA polls for the Detroit News & WXYZ-TV have consistently shown Prop 2 ahead in Sept & Oct. Their poll, in the second week of September, included practically all the Ballot Language in their question concerning Prop 2. That language includes the amendment’s bans on discrimination and preference based on race, sex, color, ethnicity and national origin. The result: Yes 48%, No 39%. Their poll, taken Oct 31 & Nov 1 (presumably using the same description of Prop 2), showed Yes 49%, No 41%.

    My guess is that the drumbeat of United Michigan TV ads charging fraud, with a federal judge’s imprimatur, is now the main danger.

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