Cantor Pollster Tries To Explain (again) Why His Polling Was Wildly Off In GOP Primary

DANIEL STRAUSS – JUNE 19, 2014, 1:58 PM EDT

John McLaughlin, the pollster who worked for outgoing House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-VA) re-election campaign, released a new survey trying to explain how his previous polling showed Cantor comfortably leading challenger David Brat, including continuing to blame Independents and Democrats for voting in the "wide-open jungle-style primary."

Brat, of course, defeated Cantor in arguably one of the biggest electoral surprises of the last few cycles. Actually, just before the June 10 primary an internal poll of the race conducted by McLaughlin showed Cantor beating Brat by 34 points.

In a new post-mortem survey of the race conducted by McLaughlin's McLaughlin & Associates, the pollster argues that the reason for the discrepancy between his polling and the actual outcome was because of voters who do not usually vote in Republican primaries. McLaughin's polling focused on voters who voted in the GOP primaries for president in 2012, the 2012 race for Congress, and the 2008 race for president. But, McLaughlin wrote, the "Virginia Republican primary system was totally open to all voters."

"It is now clear that Eric Cantor’s national standing gave the race a lot of local interest among many more voters than just past Republican primary voters, including politically interested Independents and Democrats as well. Without a parallel Democrat primary, this election was very similar to a wide-open jungle-style primary. It created an organic turnout of new voters not included in our previous poll of past primary voters," the analysis from McLaughlin's survey said.


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