Online YouGov poll finds Brownback ahead of Davis, but lead slipping

Gov. Sam Brownback leads Democrat Paul Davis in an online poll, paid for by the New York Times and CBS, but his lead has lessened since July.

Brownback leads Davis 43 percent to 39 percent, according the poll by the British firm YouGov released this week. All other recent polls – aside from an internal poll released by the Brownback campaign – have shown Davis leading the governor.

Brownback’s numbers have gone down since July when YouGov showed him leading Davis by 47 percent to 37 percent, with another 5 percent leaning toward the governor and 3 percent leaning toward Davis.

The voters surveyed were same ones the firm surveyed in July, so both candidates’ losses and gains represent momentum with specific voters. The YouGov poll does not have a margin of error because of its non-traditional methodology.

The poll showed 11 percent of voters were undecided. Another 1 percent of voters leaned toward the Democrat, while another 4 percent leaned toward the Republican. The remaining 2 percent selected “Other.”

Libertarian Keen Umbehr was not named in the poll.

RealClearPolitics, a website which aggregates data from competing polls, gives Davis a 3.7 percentage point advantage and classifies the governor’s race as a toss-up.

The New York Times’ decision to use YouGov’s polling has been controversial since the company’s methodology does not meet the newspaper’s long-held polling standards.

The poll is not random like a traditional phone poll.

The poll was conducted as an online panel between Aug. 18 and Sept. 2. YouGov selected 836 respondents who are representative of the state’s voters.

Proponents of this method argue that phone polls have become less reliable as fewer young people have landlines. However, some statisticians question the reliability of non-random polling results. The poll is also restricted to homes with internet – about 81 percent of the population nationally – which could skew it to younger and more affluent voters.

In the U.S. Senate race, YouGov has not included independent candidate Greg Orman, who was leading U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts in another poll from KSN-TV and SurveyUSA, which was released this week.

YouGov shows Roberts leading Democrat Chad Taylor by 42 percent to 30 percent.

Taylor has filed a lawsuit to have his name removed from the ballot, which the Kansas Supreme Court will hear Tuesday.

This story was originally published September 12, 2014 at 6:24 AM with the headline "Online YouGov poll finds Brownback ahead of Davis, but lead slipping."