Jeff Smith in 2004 was also an original Dean’s Dozen candidate in Missouri-03
For a total Jeff raised $437,519.86 which underperformed his target of $500,000, but he had enough to do most of what he wanted.
TV Ad Buys/production for the Cycle
$85,620
Radio Ad/Production Buys for the Cycle
$41,500
Direct Mail
$105,080
DVD/VHS Production
$12,000
$242,000 in media of different types. He also ran an incredibly effective ground operation.
My point is, complaining about the spending from Duckworth doesn’t hold any water with me. It should have been expected and it’s not extreme in any sense. Campaigns make choices and in the case of the Cegelis campaign they made a choice where their resources were going to go. Christine insisted to me, she was being very effective with the dollars in running the ground operation. That’s fine, but that’s a choice.
Duckworth’s media buys to date
TV (AKP)
$129,500
Direct Mail
$122,600
Total so far
$252,100
That’ll increase between the first of the month and the 21st, but the dollars so far aren’t something out of the ordinary other than the speed in which the money was raised.
One commenter said that Christine has sent out at least one piece now–and that makes sense, but she doesn’t have that much left to spend on it.
Media Retainer/Consultant/Legal/Accounting (Adelstein-Liston)
$23500
That’s a strategic choice and while I’m sure there will be some general mailings now, that’s a choice that the campaign has to live with and it has nothing to do with anything external.
I doubt it can be done–a strong field organization works with a savvy cost effective media strategy and in this case, the media strategy isn’t there. Now, if I’m wrong, Christina will win on the 21st, but either way the outcome that day will be due to strategic choices she made, not because of someone else in the race.
“[T]he outcome that day will be due to strategic choices she made, not because of someone else in the race.”
AP,
Do you really mean that?
That the two-way race turned into a 3-way race — with the third candidate spending a quarter of a million dollars — due to ‘strategic choices’ in the Cegelis camp?
It seems to me that it turned into a big-money, three-way primary due to decisions made by Democratic “leadership” in Chicago and Washington.
It obviously has everything to do with external funding and the imposition of a spurious candidate from without. To deny this is tantamount to behaving in a disingenuous manner.
===Do you really mean that?
Christine had the base of money to compete. Where did it go? It was spent on crap. Utter crap. It wasn’t spent on voter contact. That’s not anyone else’s fault. She started with a low, but decent name recognition, contacts, voter lists, and some committed volunteers and there is no evidence she significantly increased any of those resources after two years of running.
There are two elements to a grassroots campaign. One is organizing. The other is effective use of low cost media.
She has completely ignored any significant use of media outside of the internet.
It’s not a big money race. It’s simply not. If we believe this to be a good shot for a pick-up why is $600,000 that much for an establishment candidate? Everyone has been waiting for an establishment candidate to get in–why is it a surprise that one did?
Grassroots campaigns are always outspent, that’s why spending the money correctly matters so much. Yes, it’s harder, but lots of candidates do raise money with the establishment against them.
Christine made her choice to only concentrate upon field organizing. That’s a strategic choice she made with the dollars she had. That’s not Tammy Duckworth’s fault. That’s not Lindy Scott’s fault. That’s her choice.
Many claim that will be enough–but I’ve never seen it work and I don’t see anything about this race to change that.
AP-
I don’t follow your logic. You keep noting that this is a “big money” race, but then talking about spending $600K in a primary against an opponent you and many other have repeatedly described as poor. There is a disconnet there. If Cegelis (or her former campaign staff) made such poor decisions, then why is the DCCC and the national party pulling out the stops to try and defeat her?
I’m not abdicating any responsibility for Cegelis here. Her campaign has made mistakes. But all these mistakes could have easily been avoided just as was done for Duckworth.
Poor management and staff? Provide a manager and staff like they did for Duckworth. Poor fundraising? Hold meet and greets with Senators like they did for Duckworth. Poor media? Hire top end media consultants like they did for Duckworth.
You argument is pretty one sided and I find it a bit disengenious. If Cegelis does lose, which I don’t share your opinion on, then her loss with be not just because of the decisions her campaign had to make, but also based just as much or more on that of the decisions made by the DCCC and Rahm Emanuel.
It’s pretty simple actually–Christine had enough to compete and she spent it on ?
I do think Christine could have raised more, but more to the point, she’s thrown away the money she did raise. She’s shouldn’t be that poor. She’s only poor because she spent the money and has now run out when she needs to contact voters.
===Poor management and staff? Provide a manager and staff like they did for Duckworth. Poor fundraising? Hold meet and greets with Senators like they did for Duckworth. Poor media? Hire top end media consultants like they did for Duckworth.
Because they think Christine’s a bad candidate. That happens all the time and most grassroots campaigns have to overcome that. The problem is Christine isn’t proving them wrong, she makes the point for them.
The arguments for Christine were that she outperformed other candidates in the District. The counter was that Christine coasted off of Bean’s commercials and work in the race next door. The polling to them showed Christine with low name recognition. That told people that after a race run once, why should they back her again. I was agnostic on this for some time, but frankly, I’m quickly beginning to agree.
The question no one seems to want to answer is that if Christine made such a connection with 6th District voters last time, why is Duckworth such a threat?
==You argument is pretty one sided and I find it a bit disengenious. If Cegelis does lose, which I don’t share your opinion on, then her loss with be not just because of the decisions her campaign had to make, but also based just as much or more on that of the decisions made by the DCCC and Rahm Emanuel.
It’s one sided because that’s where the evidence is. I rail against the post-modern press so don’t expect me to do he-said-she said analysis.
Her campaign could have been an effective, cost efficient model of a grassroots campaign that could have effectively competed against a well funded competitor (which everyone kept expecting to get in). She made decisions to direct resources to everything, but voter contact. The money wasn’t spent on clipboards, voter lists, and phone banking with volunteers which are the costs for a field organization, it was spent on a little bit of everything, but voter contact.
I’ve seen a good grassroots campaign and this isn’t it. Saying that is Rahm’s fault is a cop-out for a bad campaign.
Most of all, this isn’t a big money race. Repeat after me: Duckworth raised it fast, but the amount is not surprising at all and it isn’t that much. The 8th District Republican Primary is going to be a big money race. This isn’t.
How do you plan on winning a race without media of any significant sort? Why wasn’t it budgeted out months ago? I’m baffled by this. What was the plan?
AM-
Were going to disagree on where the evidence is and what voter outreach looks like, especially in a primary in an off year.
In 2004, as you know, barely 30,000 people voted in the Democratic primary. Cegelis earned almost 21,000 of those votes. She did this with even less money than this run, and even less experience and name recognition.
This year this primary is going to come down to 11,000-12,000 votes needed to win. I don’t know why you only consider items that can show up on an FEC report as voter outreach, and nothing else.
Consider this: Since Duckworth has entered the race, Christine may have quite literally shook the hand or spoke in front of 12,000 people. Physically been in their presence.
Now add to this the volunteers working for her campaign, their circle of friends they talk to. Add to this the community leaders speaking to their circles in their union halls, churches, temples, mosques and community centers.
Doesn’t direct contact with voters count to you? Or is it all about the mailing and TV and radio?
Look, if this was the general I’d agree completely. But the universe is quite a bit different, and quite a bit smaller in a primary. Volunteer numbers don’t show up on an FEC report.
Is this working? Look at last weekend. Duckworth had Senator Dick Durbin and lots of promotion and drew 80-100 people. Cegelis, with the prospect of stuffing canvassing packets and only her short speech, drew 150.
The next day, with hours of volunteer phone calls promoting the event, Duckworth drew 20. In the same weather conditions, with no promotion beyond her website, Cegelis drew the same.
The only reason Duckworth is a threat is because of her access to money and power, not her connection to anyone in the district.
We’ll all know whether the “plan” worked or not on the 22nd. In the mean time I will suggest again that Duckworth’s campaign wouldn’t be spending $400,000 to defeat Cegelis if her campaign had “thrown away” all it’s resources as you suggest.
The level of resources they are directing toward this race suggests that Cegelis is indeed a significant threat to Duckworth’s success.
AP: “Christine had the base of money to compete. Where did it go? It was spent on crap. Utter crap. It wasn’t spent on voter contact. That’s not anyone else’s fault.”
Oh, I thought you knew where money was being spent… it was spent courting the Dem leadership in Washington — the DCCC, Emily’s List, etc. — who kept telling her and her team that if only she would meet bench mark X, they would get behind her. Then when she met benchmark X, they would tell her, “Well, that’s good but Roskam is raising so much, we’ll need you to meet benchmark Y.” And not all of the benchmarks were just fundraising goals, some were expectations that the campaign look “serious”. And all the while the DC bosses were looking for someone else to run as their candidate.
Looking back, I certainly wish that the campaign had not been so trustworthy and had simply planned to run their campaign as 2004 pt. 2, i.e. no support from D.C. or anywhere else outside the district.
So ultimately, I guess you are right that money was spent on “crap”, but we didn’t know that we were being fed crap at the time.
AP: “The arguments for Christine were that she outperformed other candidates in the District. The counter was that Christine coasted off of Bean’s commercials and work in the race next door. The polling to them showed Christine with low name recognition. That told people that after a race run once, why should they back her again.”
Who are the “people” who backed her the first time but not this time? I can’t imagine that you mean anyone outside the district supported her last time…
AP:
I hear you man and I have been trying to tell these Cegelis suporters that Cegelis’s campaign plan is void of any substance. Beyond her true believers, Cegelis hasn’t had any impact on the voters. About two months ago she was at 29% name ID among likely Democratic voters. This after two years of “campaigning”. Her use of the free media has been atrocious. Cegelis listened to people who have little or no experience running or organizing a winning campaign. Just listen to them. “Cegelis has shaken 12,000 hands”. Like all those hands she shook just translate into supporters. Maybe they were just recognizing her humanity by shaking her hand. Hand shakers can hate your guts or not agree with a damn thing you espouse.
“Like all those hands she shook just translate into supporters.”
Of course, you’re right.
It’s postcards — dozens and dozens of postcards — that convince voters to head out to a primary. I know that junkmail was the reason I got involved in the 6th District.
==AP: “The arguments for Christine were that she outperformed other candidates in the District. The counter was that Christine coasted off of Bean’s commercials and work in the race next door. The polling to them showed Christine with low name recognition. That told people that after a race run once, why should they back her again.”
==Who are the “people” who backed her the first time but not this time? I can’t imagine that you mean anyone outside the district supported her last time…
Misplaced again, but the point is they took two tacks in evaluating her candidacy. The first was to check the numbers. It wasn’t positive. We know that even by late summer/early fall her name ID with Dems was below 1/3rd and then much worse in the District as a whole. The second was many people who met with her returned with poor takes on her. When you mention the time she spent in DC, she didn’t help herself. I can’t tell you much about the specifics, but the general impressions conveyed around were not positive. The general feeling was she didn’t have a strong plan, she wasn’t terribly dynamic, and the campaign had no experienced leadership.
The establishment has been wrong, but seeing that there is no money nor plan for any media, tends to tell people they were right in that assessment.
–It’s postcards — dozens and dozens of postcards — that convince voters to head out to a primary. I know that junkmail was the reason I got involved in the 6th District.
But you are weird..you get that don’t you?
So am I so don’t take it wrong, but most people don’t pay any attention until a month out and then they often vote on a feeling or name recognition. Hitting a voter multiple times is critical to getting their vote in most cases so sending out mailings and more than one is pretty critical for most low budget campaigns. If you can’t go on TV or radio, it’s mail.
Voters aren’t activists and that’s the big mistake that most grassroots campaigns don’t understand. They aren’t motivated by some elaborate stance on issues, they are motivated by their general party stance and what they see on tv or hear on the radio or for the elite, what they read in the paper. You have to insert yourself into their lives to get their attention. It’s annoying and it’s expensive, but it’s the way to get their attention because they aren’t going to seek the information out on their own.
Organization is important for a grassroots campaign, but even the best organization has to have ways to reinforce the visits and the calls that might be made. Meeting a candidate is good, but if its not relatively close to the election, the candidate might well be forgotten.
===This year this primary is going to come down to 11,000-12,000 votes needed to win. I don’t know why you only consider items that can show up on an FEC report as voter outreach, and nothing else.
Maybe, or maybe the projections are off. I don’t remember SEIU or any other group taking a strong position in past primaries. It won’t balloon, but there will be more GOTV than in the past.
But the larger problem is that meeting a candidate is probably the best single advertisement, but isn’t not enough over months. It has to be reinforced with other contacts or the person doesn’t necessarily remember whether that nice lady was running for county board, congress, state rep, state sen. or some other random office.
The basic problem here is that people seem to believe that voters give as much of a damn as people who comment on here. Let me assure you that’s not the case.
I know of grassroots campaigns that have worked. In a couple cases it’s because the bigger name was so atrocious they were able to pull off a miracle (as might, might happen in IL-03), but usually it is because the better funded candidate spent money on crap that wasn’t voter contact while the grassroots campaign conserved its resources and ran everything very efficiently to both have a decent organization and a decent amount of paid media while exploiting free media (another area that I believe the campaign did poorly at). The better funded candidate is actually spending the money more wisely in this case and I haven’t seen a case where that wins.
Are there any examples people can share that demonstrate I’m wrong?
Just a question AP:
What are you going to do if Cegelis wins?
Your attitude and comments on this thread illustrate why there is such anger directed at the Duckworth campaign. You don’t see mainstream blogger calling Duckworth a poor candidate. You see them being critical of the style of campaign she’s running or her few ties to the district.
But when it comes to Cegelis the comments are usually derogatory – about her campaign or her personally.
If Duckworth wins this will all be forgotten and the grassroots will find some other candidate to work for in the General. But if Cegelis wins, your words and the words of others well read bloggers who have openly mocked Cegelis personally will be used against her. And what really bothers me is often the most critical of her have not even spoken to her, visited the district, or seen what is going on in the field right now. You’ve at least interviewed her, but that was two months ago.
Your opinion and the points you raise do have validity. But often they are about things 8 months old or directed at her previous management. I know your mind is made up, as is mine, but I hope you will be more open minded should Cegelis win. Which I’m sure we disagree upon the likelihood of happening.
===You don’t see mainstream blogger calling Duckworth a poor candidate. You see them being critical of the style of campaign she’s running or her few ties to the district.
For one, Duckworth’s campaign is being run well. I don’t have big issues with pulling in outside money–in a district like 6 as a Democrat, the nominee will. There simply isn’t the Democratic financial base there. Just as there wasn’t in IL-08.
The Duckworth campaign has
1) raised money–and yes she had help, but that’s not the only reason. Talking to people who pull in donors, she was an incredibly easy sell.
2) She uses free media incredibly well
3) She was very effective at several larger endorsement sessions–people gushed over her after several of those including the unions and others
4) She went after the best foot soldiers in getting endorsments and got them.
It would be hypocritical of me to attack her for not living in the District because I supported Bean. And I’ve supported candidates who have recently moved into a District. As far as I’m concerned, the voters can decide that themselves and most don’t care that much in past elections if they like the candidate.
In fact, I don’t care much that Lipinski moved in from Tennessee, I only care that he never had to face a real election.
===But when it comes to Cegelis the comments are usually derogatory – about her campaign or her personally.
I haven’t been derogatory towards her personally. I think she’s very nice. I think she’s running a bad campaign, however, and she blew threw a lot of money without anything tangible to show for it.
===who have openly mocked Cegelis personally will be used against her.
Who is mocking her personally?
===Your opinion and the points you raise do have validity. But often they are about things 8 months old or directed at her previous management
Patrick only left a little over a month ago, but even then, Patrick isn’t the candidate. She is. She made strategic choices about how to use resources. It might have been with Patrick’s consent or suggestion, but the ultimate responsible person in a campaign is the candidate. If Patrick was that bad, he should have been replaced sooner. Personally, I think Patrick is a great assett, but probably wasn’t ready for a Congressional Campaign as manager. I’m hoping he’ll pick up some more experience with Seals and stick around.
There is very little money left after raising over $300,000 and there is no significant money left for any media.
There didn’t appear to be budget for media other than retainers early on.
If she wins, that’s fine and it would prove that she can out organize every field organizer I’ve ever met, but I’ve met some damn good ones and with much more experience they couldn’t have pulled off what everyone is saying Christine can do.
The only field organization I know of that is potentially strong enough to pull off a win like everyone is suggesting is Mike Madigans and he’d never, ever go in without media.
You can’t say it’s all better now when the earlier situation left her with little money and little voter contact for the money she did spend.
I’ve always covered these issues and even when I like a candidate I’ve always been critical of dumb choices. It probably seems a lot more vocal only because if I say something mild I get challenged as if I called her Satan and then I defend my point. It adds a lot to how much I’d even say.
AP: I appreciate your willingness to continue this discussion in the comments as you have.
We disagree at the core about what “voter contact” is. I think that’s the crux of this discussion. You believe Cegelis has spent her money:
“It was spent on crap. Utter crap. It wasn’t spent on voter contact.”
I find this offensive in tone, and also limited in view of what voter contact is. Direct voter contact through events and one on one interaction does not show up on an FEC document. Christine has been doing that. You seem to infer that Cegelis never intended to do any “traditional” media. This was dependant on fundraising, and with the party pushing another candidate and telling everyone to get in line or sit on their hands (and please don’t tell me this didn’t happen) fundraising suffered. Of course this isn’t the whole picture, but you how can you deny that it played a part?
District wide mailers cost a great deal in printing and mailing. Without the money coming in, the campaign had little choice but to focus its efforts on shoe leather. There seemed to also be a mindset that this was the right way to campaign. If there would have been more money, as was gifted to Duckworth, the media strategy probably would have been different.
But regardless, to write off Cegelis’ campaign as spending their money on crap is over the top. With 10 days to go Cegelis has been out raised and out media bought, yet is still standing toe to toe with the national party candidate, and in a position to win.
You note that Duckworth raised money, uses free media, pulled large endorsements, and her “foot soldiers.” Again saying ‘she’ did this I feel it giving too much credit. She has charisma to be certain, but to credit her with doing all this solo is completely inaccurate.
Duckworth was given Emanuel and Durbin’s donor list, and personally introduced. She didn’t “do” that. As to the free media, how free is it when you have a top end publicist and media specialist calling in their contacts, or Rahm’s buddy on ABC setting up interviews on national TV. Again, she didn’t “do” that. The endorsement session performance she probably did, but setting up those endorsements and being given favorable introductions I’m sure helped her ‘do’ that. And although she may have “gotten” her foot soldiers, many of her staff and their contacts were given to her. Again, she didn’t “do” this remotely on her own.
This is probably my biggest issue with the support for Duckworth – she is given credit for things she didn’t do. Cegelis has earned everything she’s done. Yet she gets little respect for it. She’s made mistakes to be certain. But how many of those mistakes would Duckworth had made if she didn’t have the unprecedented support from Emanuel, the national party or the DCCC that she’s had. To insinuate that this makes Duckworth a better candidate is just not accurate.
We won’t know until the 22nd whether or not shoe leather beats paid media, or if the weight of the party is able to crush the locals. But regardless, I wish you and others who write about this race would show some respect for what Cegelis has accomplished. There is still an excellent chance that she will win the primary. She has inspired the local party and grassroots. She has done a great service for the local Democratic party.
That’s worth something. Buying media and campaigning remotely by media does not build the party.
====find this offensive in tone, and also limited in view of what voter contact is. Direct voter contact through events and one on one interaction does not show up on an FEC document. Christine has been doing that. You seem to infer that Cegelis never intended to do any “traditional” media. This was dependant on fundraising, and with the party pushing another candidate and telling everyone to get in line or sit on their hands (and please don’t tell me this didn’t happen) fundraising suffered. Of course this isn’t the whole picture, but you how can you deny that it played a part?
I don’t have a limited view of what voter contact is. But there are two arguments that are made to me about her spending. One is that she doesn’t need to spend money on most of her voter contact so it doesn’t show up in FEC filings.
The other was that she was spending money on items early so the expenses just seemed high in the fall.
Now, I’d have to figure out if the same people are making both arguments, but there’s a problem there in there doesn’t seem to be a consistent strategy understood. That’s possible as supporters often don’t pay attention closely to the plan, but there’s still this problem of no one seems to understand what the plan is.
This begs the question of what she is spending the money on–she has raised about $320,000 with about $75,000 left. She spent about $25,000 on media–which I think everyone thinks is a bad idea in retrospect since it’s primarily retainers. That can happen, but let’s look at another grass roots campaign.
I pointed out in Smith’s race that he spent $242,000 on media out of about $430,000
That means even if you adjust for the difference in fundraising, $110,000, even if you lop that off the media Smith spent, you have $130,000 to spend just on media in two campaigns, of which, Jeff had a more extensive operation at the field end and hit at least as many appearances.
Jeff went to DC several times. Jeff went around the country several times for fundraisers. He was largely cut off of establishment money. Matsui made a donation to Carnahan.
Now, Jeff is running his second campaign, but he geared down to a State Senate race. His budget is around $250,000 for that primary and is well on track to hit that by August. She’s raised about $320,000.
Grassroots campaigning based on organizing is great, but I have yet to see any evidence it’s enough on its own in any other race, so what makes this race different?
Even if the campaign didn’t have as much money as others, there was a significant portion that could have been allocated towards media. Instead, there is very, very little in those reports that indicate voter contact. I don’t doubt she’s out there meeting people and organizing, but that’s not enough and she had enough to do some media. Why didn’t she do it?
It should never be an either or strategy. People can poo-poo Duckworth, but she has strong union support that will be out there for a variety of races including hers. It might not be as extensive, but it will probably be more than enough.
There are a thousand excuses, but this is the entire point about why didn’t the budget put aside that money instead of spending it on everything, but voter contact?
==With 10 days to go Cegelis has been out raised and out media bought, yet is still standing toe to toe with the national party candidate, and in a position to win.
Is this true? I seriously doubt it. Unless someone has poll numbers to demonstrate it, I don’t know how one can claim it.
Look, Markos said the same thing—if she is doing such a great job, she’ll win. That said, there isn’t any evidence of it. Why is this campaign different than every other campaign that swears it will win with organization only?
===We won’t know until the 22nd whether or not shoe leather beats paid media, or if the weight of the party is able to crush the locals. But regardless, I wish you and others who write about this race would show some respect for what Cegelis has accomplished.
But what has she accomplished–not one vote has been cast. There’s a lot of chatter on the internet, but it’s not clear there is some huge groundswell of support. Confusing activists with voters is a fatal mistake for a campaign.
==There is still an excellent chance that she will win the primary.
Based on what information?
===She has inspired the local party and grassroots. She has done a great service for the local Democratic party.
Everyone keeps saying this, but what is the evidence of that?
What strikes me is that her supporters are offended when I point these things out, but no one brings up examples of how it has been done previously or can offer up something that would change their mind. In scientific terms, there is no way to invalidate the hypotheses of her supporters except on election day and I’m not sure that will even make many reconsider.
I’m the first to admit I haven’t seen the full polling from the beginning of the year, but what I have heard is that for someone running for office for three years, the name ID was still low. This would seem to contradict everything people are saying in her support. Worse, there isn’t much ability to hit larger masses of people with the message.
===You note that Duckworth raised money, uses free media, pulled large endorsements, and her “foot soldiers.” Again saying ‘she’ did this I feel it giving too much credit. She has charisma to be certain, but to credit her with doing all this solo is completely inaccurate.
I’m not sure why everyone feels the need to treat her like a tool of other people. No one thinks she didn’t get help, but getting US Senators, Congressman and others to enthusiastically do all of this isn’t nothing in itself.
All grassroots campaigns face this and the good ones still make it close. So far there isn’t a whole lot of evidence this is going to be a close race. Ceding the media is something that happens when a campaign has run out of options.
Let me make it clear–Duckworth’s campaign isn’t excessive in spending. Any decent establishment candidate in a contested primary would have that much. It’s simply not that much for a quality candidate. The notion that it is tells people on the outside a lot about how this race has been run.
Anon: ‘With 10 days to go Cegelis has been out raised and out media bought, yet is still standing toe to toe with the national party candidate, and in a position to win.’
AP: “Is this true? I seriously doubt it. Unless someone has poll numbers to demonstrate it, I don’t know how one can claim it.”
I think I can make that claim due to a logical negative inference, i.e. I believe that Duckworth’s campaign finance information indicates that FTD has spent thousands on polling. And if those numbers were good for Duckworth — e.g. her numbers were rising significantly or she was ahead in the race — I believe that those poll results would have been made available to the press, either directly or by “leak”.
But those poll numbers have been kept under wraps.
Maybe I’m full of crap. Maybe there is another reason for not releasing the numbers. But if FTD’s polling showed that Christine’s team is getting beat, I believe that those polls would be shared with the papers.
Either way, we’ll be out knocking on doors again tomorrow.
::: Looks at clock :::
I mean this morning.
So Called Austin Mayor:
Why do you assume that any polling that Duckworth has done would be leaked to the media? Someone released polling information in late November about Cegelis’s horrendous name ID among likely Democratic voters. This may have been done to document what many deem to be shortcomings in Cegelis’s overall campaign strategy.
What advantage would releasing current polling data give the Duckworth campaign except to lull her supporters into a false sense of security. Maybe the results only point out to the campaign staff how effective their campaign strategy is working ie: building name ID, issues, favorables, etc.
I have never worked on a campaign where an internal poll data is leaked to the media just to make a story. You may share some results with your fundraising team to reinforce that you have a viable candidate. Maybe if information is shared off the record with reporters, it would be used to validate the momemtum of the campaign.