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\n

A prominent Michigan pollster is accusing state Sen. Mallory McMorrow\u2019s Senate campaign of pressuring a state capitol news outlet into killing a survey of the heated Democratic primary.<\/p>\n

The pollster, Steve Mitchell, told Blue Light News the survey was conducted on behalf of Michigan Information & Research Service, an independent news outlet covering the state capitol that his firm regularly works with. But MIRS ultimately chose not to publish the survey after pushback from the McMorrow campaign.<\/p>\n

The poll found McMorrow<\/a> at just 6 percent ahead of the state\u2019s pivotal Aug. 4 contest, far behind former public health official Abdul El-Sayed at 42 percent and Rep. Haley Stevens at 33 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe poll, in the eyes of the McMorrow campaign, understated their support,\u201d Mitchell, whose firm Mitchell Research & Communications conducted and paid for the poll, told Blue Light News. \u201cAnd they put intense pressure on MIRS, and therefore MIRS decided that they weren’t going to run the survey. That’s their decision, and I support their decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

McMorrow has trailed the other two candidates in a number of recent public surveys, but 6 percent would mark a new low \u2014 a sign her campaign for the critical Michigan Senate seat may be mired in third place. McMorrow\u2019s campaign told Blue Light News the polling methodology was faulty and that its resulting memo was riddled with errors, including spelling her name wrong.<\/p>\n

Kyle Melinn, a news editor with MIRS, said he killed the poll after speaking with the McMorrow campaign and other pollsters.<\/p>\n

“I told Steve that the campaign did raise issues with the poll, and that they were pressuring me to not run the poll,\u201d Melinn said in an interview. He added that after registering the McMorrow campaign\u2019s concerns, he solicited the advice of other pollsters, and \u201cdidn’t run it because I didn’t feel comfortable with it.” The other unidentified pollsters shared his issues with the poll, according to Melinn.<\/p>\n

McMorrow campaign spokesperson Jackson Boaz said in a statement that \u201cVoicing concerns about a poll isn\u2019t a pressure campaign. They chose not to publish a survey that is deeply flawed.\u201d Asked whether the campaign had asked MIRS not to run the poll, Boaz said, \u201cMIRS chose not to run the poll because they agreed the poll did not meet their standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boaz said the McMorrow campaign reached out to MIRS after \u201cwe noticed odd things about the data,\u201d including that 0 percent of Black voters were undecided in the race; 0 or 1 percent of voters in Detroit and its metro area were undecided while other parts of the state had undecided voters at 25 percent, 48 percent, and even 54 percent; and that McMorrow was at just 5 percent support in her home base of Oakland County.<\/p>\n

Their suspicion \u2014 which they said MIRS confirmed \u2014 was that the poll allowed anyone to take it through an open link, rather than having access controlled to ensure a random and representative sample of the state.<\/p>\n

The poll was conducted through a methodology known as text-to-web, in which random voters are selected to receive a text message link to a survey to fill out. That allows pollsters to ensure they are reaching an appropriately wide-ranging group of voters. But the McMorrow campaign said all respondents received the same open-access link, which would allow anyone with the link to take the poll \u2014 potentially multiple times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outlet that sponsored this poll declined to publish it because it didn\u2019t meet their standards.<\/p>\n

It was conducted through an open SurveyMonkey link sent over text, meaning anyone who<\/p>\n

received this poll could vote multiple times or send the link to friends and supporters to impact<\/p>\n

the results,\u201d Boaz said in a statement. \u201cThis is fundamental polling malpractice. We urge either of our opponents, or any reputable pollster, to stand by this shoddy methodology.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview, Mitchell admitted he got some of the polling memo wrong, saying for example that he meant to write El-Sayed supported Medicare for All, not \u201cSocial Security for All.\u201d But he said he stood by the poll and its methodology.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always had 100 percent confidence in all the polling I do,\u201d Mitchell said. \u201cI believe that we\u2019ve been very strenuous in the methodology that we use. We’re very careful about it. We weighted it well, and more importantly, we have a track record that shows we are a strong and good pollster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA poll is a poll,\u201d Mitchell said when asked about the open link question, sharing a poll with Blue Light News from GOP gubernatorial candidate John James that he said used a similar approach.<\/p>\n

The controversy over the spiked poll underscores the importance of the Michigan Senate race. Democrats view defending the open seat as crucial to reclaiming the Senate majority, and the party establishment has mobilized hard against Bernie Sanders-backed El-Sayed, who they argue could pave the way to Republican Mike Rogers flipping the seat in November.<\/p>\n

But recent polls<\/a>suggest McMorrow is falling behind El-Sayed, who is experiencing a surge in support, and Stevens, who is backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.<\/p>\n

In the memo about the contested poll, Mitchell wrote there has been a \u201chuge erosion in support for Mallory McMorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons for her seeming collapse is the fact El-Sayed had received a large amount of unpaid media because of the endorsements by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Hasan Piker the anti-Semitic podcaster while Haley Stevens had an outside organization spend more than $6 million on her candidacy,\u201d Mitchell wrote. However, he added: \u201cOur poll was conducted June 11-13 which coincided with an ad buy of at least $5 million on behalf of McMorrow that started just the day before we began our polling. Therefore, McMorrow\u2019s ads did not have enough time to impact our results.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A prominent Michigan pollster is accusing state Sen. Mallory McMorrow\u2019s Senate campaign of pressuring a state capitol news outlet into killing a survey of the heated Democratic primary. The pollster, Steve Mitchell, told Blue Light News the survey was conducted on behalf of Michigan Information & Research Service, an independent news outlet covering the state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}