Yesterday the Poizner for Governor campaign held a press conference via telephone to share their news with reporters (and some bloggers that at least included the CalBuzz boys and yours truly) where they paraded out the principals of their very reputable polling firm, Public Opinion Strategies, to announce that their poll shows that the GOP primary campaign has closed to a ten point race, with Whitman at 38%, Poizner at 28% and the very large remainder of voters being undecided. 

Being that this is an internal poll, there is a tendency for those of us who are not affiliated with either campaign to perhaps want to wait for a the next non-candidate sponsored statewide poll to come out.  Sacramento Bee reporter John Chang on the conference call even brought this point up.  That said, I decided to do some nosing around and I was able to confirm, from solid sources, two other statewide surveys that show this race even closer — in single digits!  I was told about a third poll that also shows this, but could not get that from someone who is a solid enough source to run with it solo.

I spoke last night with Poizner strategist Mike Schroeder, the former Chairman of the California Republican Party, who wanted to make sure I understood that up to this point, Poizner has done zero-zip-nada in television advertising in the Bay Area media market — but that this stops now as I would imagine they will have a major Bay Area buy coming pretty quickly.  According to the POS/Poizner survey, they are only an average of five points down in the other media markets, but they are getting really clobbered in this area where Poiz has been dark.  Schroeder predicts a further tightening of the polling numbers just as a result of this new buy (how much you want to bet they roll out that effective Goldman Sachs ad?).

I have to figure that if multiple surveys are showing that this race has closed that much — that this Gubernatorial primary is indeed developing into a horse race. 

What are some things that we can expect to see with the race closing up?  Well,on Poizner’s side, the first significant impact of a tight race is that I would imagine the Poizner check-book is sure to come out and if he doesn’t match Whitman’s spending for the final month, he’ll come close.  Secondly, look for Poizner to continue with what seems to be a successful theme of hitting Whitman on her ties to Goldman Sachs. 

Mike Murphy from the Whitman campaign was quick to remind people yesterday that the winner in an election is the person that gets over half of the votes, and that Whitman is a lot closer to that 51% mark than is Poizner.  That said, what does the race tightening up mean for the Whitman campaign strategy.  Invariably it means a notching up of her negative campaign on Poizner (if that is possible) — and perhaps in an effort to "bring home" the nomination, you may see Whitman start to release some television commercials aimed directly at Republican primary voters.  So far her spots have been largely aimed at a broader general election audience.  As the predominantly negative campaigning drives more and more voters into the undecided column, the question is where these voters ultimately decided to come down.

Look for an even higher level of activity from both of these campaigns — and we’ll cover as much of it as we can.

The one thing that I want to throw out there (and no, this is not my "party official" spin) — but I feel confident that either Poizner or Whitman will represent a strong challenge to Jerry Brown, who I think is on the wrong side of so many key issues of our day.  Whether it is reigning in state overspending, implemented real solutions to the pension tsunami crisis, or repealing draconian regulations that are making the recession in California worse than anywhere else — it will be Poizner or Whitman that have the upper hand in that debate.

Now from the Spin Zone, I got this note from longtime FR friend Jim Brulte last night, and so I throw it your way…  (Read further down on the FR blog for more spin from the two campaigns from yesterday’s dueling press calls…)

FROM THE SPIN ZONE:  JIM BRULTE, CHAIRMAN, POIZNER FOR GOVERNOR CAMPAIGN

Steve Poizner will beat Meg Whitman on June 8th and he will be the Republican nominee that will beat Jerry Brown in November.

The polls indicate that Steve is gaining support rapidly as Meg Whitman’s candidacy continues to collapse under the weight of her support for Barbara Boxer, her support for amnesty, and her corrupt ties to Goldman Sachs.

The Poizner campaign has had a sound strategy from day one and things are playing out just as we thought they would.  

Republican primary voters are responding to Steve’s positive message at a record pace and they are quickly identifying that Meg Whitman is not trustworthy and that she is certainly not the best choice to represent our Party in November.

Despite the fact that Meg Whitman has spent over $60 million in this race, Steve Poizner is now within five points of Meg Whitman in every part of the state except for San Francisco, where he is within ten points.

Steve is the superior candidate in this race and he has a superior message. Any candidate who spends over $60 million to lose 50 points in the polls is a seriously flawed candidate and that’s exactly what Meg Whitman is – a flawed candidate who is hemorrhaging support rapidly.

We have no doubt that this trend will continue as we move closer to Election Day and we have no doubt that Steve Poizner will beat Meg Whitman on June 8th.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 6th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.