SurveyUSA round-up

SurveyUSA, one of the nation's most accurate and respectable polls, just completed several releases in conjunction with KING-5 news. First, and possibly most surprising, is that David Irons is trailing Ron Sims 50-45 in the race for King County executive. This is notable because the poll was just a head-to-head between the two, and did not factor in Green challenger Gentry Lange, who provides an attractive anti-Sims protest vote and could draw as much as 5% of the November vote. The demographic breakdown is a wash, as usual, but let's just say if Irons does indeed pull more Democrats to his side than vice versa and wins self-described Independents, an upset could be in the future. I had been growing increasingly skeptical about Irons' chances, so this is certainly some good news.

In another batch, SUSA covered the three "contested" Seattle City Council races. All three show incumbents winning, but most notably is Richard Conlin's slim 44-39 lead over Paige Miller for position two. However, if both split Democrats and Conlin wins Republicans and Independents, it's difficult to see a loss. Add to that a split of so-called moderates (more often than not liberals in hiding) with Conlin carrying both conservatives and liberals, I tend to think his lead is a little more than the slightly-outside-the-MOE shown here. In other news, Jan Drago and Richard McIver have strong leads over their challengers, but both are hovering around the 50% mark.