Marino poll says he’s way up on Brion, Troiano

Just in case you thought an upset possible in the 10th Congressional District race, U.S. Rep. Tom Marino wants you to know it won’t happen.
The two-term Republican congressman’s campaign just released a polling memo that says he’s way up on his two challengers, Democrat Scott Brion and independent Nick Troiano.
The Marino campaign’s pollster, Harper Polling, hasn’t released the full poll so far, but Harper president Brock McCleary’s memo says 58 percent of likely voters back the congressman, 22 percent support Mr. Brion and 10 percent back Mr. Troiano. The full memo is at the bottom of this post.
The automated telephone survey of 763 likely voters was done Oct. 20 and 21 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.55 points.
This means he had the poll results for a week and didn’t release them until the final week, but so what?
I’ve said all along this race isn’t competitive, and even though I’m usually skeptical about the reliability of candidate polls because of their built-in potential for bias, I don’t doubt Mr. Marino will cruise next Tuesday.
By the way, I’m also skeptical about polling memos because it means a campaign won’t share its whole poll with the public. That sometimes means the pollster asked other questions and the candidate doesn’t the answers to them out there for all to see.
The polling memo also says:
— More than half of voters (52 percent) have a favorable view of Mr. Marino with only about a quarter having favorable views of Mr. Brion (24 percent) and Mr. Troiano (25 percent). More than half of voters have no opinion of Mr. Troiano and Mr. Brion, and the memo correctly concludes “that they have not defined themselves to the electorate.”
— More than half of voters (51 percent) approve of the way Mr. Marino is doing his job while more than a third (35 percent) disapprove.
— Mr. Marino is well-liked within his party with more than four in five voters (82 percent) saying they would vote for him. Fewer than half (45 percent) say that about Mr. Brion with a third of Democrats (33 percent) backing Mr. Marino. Mr. Marino also has more than twice the support of independents as Mr. Troiano (44-20 percent).
One surprise to me is that while 74 percent of voters think the country is on the wrong track only 53 percent blame President Barack Obama for it. About another sixth of voters (15 percent) blamed Mr. Marino and the Republicans in Congress. Not sure who the other people blame because the full poll wasn’t released.
In a Republican district, I expected a lot more people would blame the president.
Tom Marino 2014 Election-Oct. 28 Harper Poll
— BORYS KRAWCZENIUK