The latest poll is out from National Journal‘s Hotline, although now with a new sponsor and two new names: The Diageo/Hotline poll conducted by Financial Dynamics. The pollster of record is still Ed Reilly, although his company Westhill Partners was recently acquired by Financial Dynamics. So same pollster, different names.
Their latest poll includes a parallel study on the Virginia governor’s race. At the newly renamed Diageo/Hotline poll site (update your bookmarks), readers can find analysis, slides and full results for both the national and Virginia surveys.
One notable result: On an open-ended question, 33% of their national sample of registered voters (n=6500, interviewed 10/12-16) mentioned the economy as the most important issue facing the country, up sharply from 14% on the previous survey and an average of 15% on surveys conducted earlier in 2005.
At a poll briefing that MP attended in Washington this morning, Reilly described the result as "a significant shift in perception." He described issues like the Miers nomination, the Plame leak investigation as "abstract" in comparison to the pain of rising gas prices. "What people are really experiencing," Reilly said, "is that money has come off the table."
UPDATE: Reader PY writes to remind MP that 500 interviews is unusually small for a national sample and makes for small subgroup sample sizes. For example, the party ID subgroups in the presentation include somewhere between 120 and 160 interviews each.
Also, note that the "Candidate Profile" slide (#17) shows results as a percentage of each candidate’s support. Thus, the column for independent candidate Potts indicates that 34% of his support comes from Northern Virginia, NOT (improbably) that Potts gets 34% of the Northern Virginia vote. As the Potts "profile" column is is based on only 5% of the vote (roughly 25 interviews), Hotline/Diageo might have done better to omit it.
Great!