McKinley poll shows gap closing with Oliverio

PARKERSBURG – Democrat Mike Oliverio’s lead over opponent David McKinley is dwindling, according to the latest poll taken for McKinley.

The poll by Public Opinion Strategies for release today shows McKinley trailing the Morgantown insurance agent 41 percent to 36 percent in the election for the U.S. House of Representatives 1st Congressional District in West Virginia.

Oliverio released a poll by Hamilton Campaigns immediately after the Aug. 28 special primary election that said he was ahead 52 percent to 36 percent over McKinley, a Wheeling businessman and former state Republican Party chairman.

“These numbers reflect what I am hearing from voters throughout the district, that they have had enough of Obama’s War on Coal and Nancy Pelosi’s job-killing Capitol Hill agenda,” McKinley said in a release from the campaign. “Voters have had enough of the attack from Washington on West Virginia jobs.”

In response, the Oliverio campaign said McKinley has been lying about Oliverio.

“David McKinley’s been lying about Mike Oliverio since May, and he’s spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money doing this,” Randy Coleman, an Oliverio spokesman, said Monday. “Now, according to his own poll, he’s still stuck in the mud at 36 percent. The lying and buying doesn’t seem to be working.”

Results also showed Oliverio’s “favorables” have sharply fallen, the campaign said.

McKinley’s “intensity quotient,” the opinion of those paying attention to the race, is 5 points higher than Oliverio’s among voters with a “high interest” and 15 percent higher than Oliverio’s among voters with an “extremely high interest,” the campaign said.

McKinley’s lead among voters who have an opinion of both candidates is 53 percent to Oliverio’s 40 percent, Rob Autry, McKinley’s polling strategist, said.

The survey by Public Opinion Strategies was conducted Sept. 1 and 2 and polled 500 likely voters. The company’s clients are primarily Republicans, including Rep. Shelley Capito of West Virginia and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

“They are the premiere polling firm on the U.S. political scene,” said Steve Cohen, a McKinley spokesman.

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