Professional surveyors DID conduct surveys showing Boyd’s double digit lead

The survey showing Ken Boyd with a double-digit lead over Robert Hurt among definite primary voters was conducted using live surveyors, contrary to a charge issued by one of his challengers in the Republican primary to replace Congressman Tom Perriello in Virginia’s 5^th Congressional District.

A press release issued by Wilson Research made a baseless charge that, “The Interactive Voice Response (IVR) methodology used to collect the data has been demonstrated to be unreliable, particularly in the hands of less experienced or less careful polling organizations.”

“The Wilson Research press release is significantly flawed and intentionally misleading. At no time did they contact this campaign to determine the methods used or  the firm that conducted this survey. Had they bothered to ask the Boyd campaign, we would have been happy to tell them. What Wilson Research really didn’t like were results showing Ken Boyd’s early lead among definite primary voters,” said Paul Wright, spokesman for Ken Boyd for Congress. “The basic charge that Wilson Research makes is that unless someone pays a polling firm like themselves to interpret the results of a poll question, than it can’t possibly be valid or accurate.  Their attempt to undermine the credibility of the results by making a baseless – and factually inaccurate – assertions does a disservice to the people and the press of Virginia’s 5^th Congressional District.”

Our surveys were conducted by Advanced Customer Services, which has conducted surveys for hundreds of winning Republican candidates across the country. As stated in the initial release, the first question each definite primary voter was asked was straight-forward:

“Hello, this is _______________ calling with a brief survey about how you feel about Congress. The first question is, if you could replace Democratic Congressman Tom Perriello today with a Republican of your choice, would you elect Robert Hurt, Feda Morton, Jim McKelvey, Michael McPadden, Laurence Verga, Ken Boyd or Ron Ferrin?”

Among 500 definite primary voters, Ken Boyd led with 21% of the vote to 10% for Robert Hurt, 4% for Feda Morton and less than 2% for each of the other candidates.  (for additional results, see the original release at http://www.kenboydforcongress.com/2010/01/boyd-leads-all-candidates-in-primary-poll/).

“No one can credibly claim that this question was biased – a plurality of people who are definitely voting in the Republican primary support Ken Boyd,” Wright said.  “This race is starting to intensify and Robert Hurt does have a lot of soft support from voters who occasionally vote in Republican primaries and aren’t aware that Sen. Hurt voted for the largest tax increase in Virginia’s history. While we do wish Wilson Research had checked the facts before making the false charge that the calls were made using an automated system instead of professional surveyors; we do agree with their other conclusion that these results are very bad news for Robert Hurt.”