Poll: Berg increases his lead over Pomeroy
| Results of a new poll released Friday show Republican challenger Rick Berg has increased his lead over Democratic incumbent Earl Pomeroy in North Dakota’s U.S. House race.Rasmussen Reports conducted a telephone survey of 500 likely North Dakota voters May 18-19 that shows Berg leading Pomeroy 52 percent to 43 percent. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
It’s the fourth straight month that a Rasmussen Reports poll has put Berg in the lead, and the latest results show Berg increasing that edge. An April 20 poll showed Berg ahead of Pomeroy 49 percent to 45 percent — meaning Berg has increased the gap between Pomeroy by 5 percentage points in the past month. Respondents to a March 23 poll put Berg in the lead 51 percent to 44 percent, and a Feb. 9-10 poll showed Berg leading 46 percent to 40 percent. The latest results also show a low number of respondents who said they weren’t sure who they would vote for in the race to serve as the state’s lone member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Only 3 percent of respondents said they were undecided in May, down slightly from the 4 percent who weren’t sure in April. And only 2 percent said they would vote for some other candidate, the same level as the April poll. Reaction Berg, a state representative from Fargo, picked up the North Dakota Republican Party’s endorsement at the March state convention in Grand Forks. He’s facing competition for the party nomination from Kenmare, N.D., oil consultant J.D. Donaghe, who is challenging Berg in the June 8 primary elections. Berg campaign spokesman Tom Nelson released a statement Friday that said this latest poll shows Berg’s message is getting to voters despite Pomeroy’s “three-week television ad blitz.” “This poll further demonstrates that North Dakotans recognize Washington is broken and Rick’s message is resonating,” Nelson said. “People know that Rick will go to Washington and focus on jobs and getting our fiscal house in order, just as he did in North Dakota.” Pomeroy, the state’s lone member of the U.S. House since 1992, is running for a 10th term. Joe Aronson, executive director of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, questioned the legitimacy of this latest poll in a Friday statement. He also said any poll before the general election campaign begins “should be taken with a grain of salt.” “This is yet another skewed survey from Rasmussen that says less about the reality on the ground than it does about the political agenda of this Republican-leaning pollster,” Aronson wrote. “The Prairie Poll, which has a stronger record of accuracy than Rasmussen, released a poll a few weeks ago that showed Congressman Pomeroy beating a challenger by double digits.” |