Barletta claims big lead in poll

Hazleton, PA – The congressional campaign for Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta today released a memo from the nationally recognized polling firm The Tarrance Group. The poll was conducted on July 12-13. Four hundred likely voters in Pennsylvania’s 11th Congressional District were surveyed.

The poll showed that a majority of voters favored Lou Barletta over Paul Kanjorski by a margin of 56 percent to 37 percent. It also indicated that only 32 percent of voters believe Paul Kanjorski deserves to be re-elected.

Mayor Lou Barletta said, “The only poll I care about is the one taken on Election Day. However, this poll is a strong indicator that the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania realize Paul Kanjorski’s failed policies and reckless spending are hurting their lives, our region, and this nation. There are just over three months left for me to make my case to the voters of the 11th District, and I plan to do so at the grassroots level, over the airwaves, and through the Web. I only wish Paul Kanjorski would change his mind and agree to meet me in a series of debates and town halls across this district, rather than constantly send out negative attacks from his taxpayer-funded Washington, D.C., office. Kanjorski’s negative campaigning is not creating one job or improving our economy by one cent.”

On Monday, the Barletta campaign announced it had passed the $500,0000 raised mark with more than 10,000 individual donors. This puts the campaign ahead of where it was at this point in 2008.

On Wednesday, Lou Barletta for Congress began airing its first campaign commercial on both network and cable television. View the ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x2glOlrScY

Click here to view the full memo [PDF].

If you click on the link you will find that a few pages seem to be missing from the memo such as the methodology, the order of the questions and the cross tabs. You always have to take internal polls with a grain of salt whether it's from this outfit or Democratic pollsters such as Momentum Analysis.



About the Terrance Group


The Tarrance Group is an opinion polling and "strategic research" that works for Republican candidates, corporations and some non-profit groups.[1] On its website it states that it has "helped elect more than 80 Republican governors, U.S. Senators and Members of Congress, as well as scores of state legislative candidates. All of these clients would say one thing about The Tarrance Group: We hate to lose.

Of course I asked Ed Mitchell about this poll and he sent along this analysis:


Statement on 'So-Called' Barletta Poll by Ed Mitchell

These numbers look highly suspect to us. With such little information presented in the memo, we don't know what was tested but not revealed. It's hard to comment definitively on such unreliable and little data.

What we do know is that Barletta has a money problem. We'll know more about that tomorrow, but from what Barletta has said, he's raised less this year to date than in 2008. He's started a three or four day, small TV buy, which is laughable and almost a waste of money. And all this is aimed at drumming up interest in a major fundraiser event he has next week and raising money among Washington special interest PACS.

Moreover, Barletta is trying to shift attention from his botched job as mayor of Hazleton where he is laying off employees, contributing to the city having the highest unemployment rate in the state. He's raising taxes 70 percent and shipping toxic waste into the city. No wonder he wants to talk about something else.

This looks like more of two-time loser Barletta's smoke and mirrors. Remember, in 2008, Barletta repeatedly released polls showing he was going to win. Congressman Kanjorski won. Barletta lost again.