Poll: Porter may have edge in race for Congress

Erin Neff

Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.

The leading candidates in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District continue to raise money this week to fund what will ultimately be more than $2 million in television ads.

Former state Sen. Jon Porter, the Republican, is in Washington today completing a 48-hour dash for donations to finish his campaign's concerted fund-raising efforts.

Clark County Commission Chairman Dario Herrera, the Democrat, heads to Washington on Wednesday on a similar 48-hour fund-raising mission as a new ad airs attacking Porter for his prescription drug stance.

Porter is buoyed by a new Republican poll suggesting he has a 9-point edge in a head-to-head matchup with Herrera.

The poll of 400 likely voters in the district was conducted Sept. 18 and 19 by Public Opinion Strategies for the National Republican Congressional Campaign. It has a margin of error of 4.9 percent.

Pollster Glen Bolger said the Democrats' strategy of attacking Porter first may have given Herrera a short-term boost that is beginning to fade.

"But considering Herrera's range of ethical wrongdoings, the Democrats have the political equivalent of a dull butter knife matched against a machete," Bolger wrote in his poll memo dated Monday.

Porter's campaign consultant Mike Slanker said the poll caps a week of positive news and building momentum.

"Everything just feels right, the ads, the fund-raising, the letters," Slanker said.

But Herrera's campaign manager, Achim Bergmann, said the poll's numbers do not agree with a poll Doug Schoen did for Herrera showing a much closer race.

"That is the same polling firm that had Richard Bunker up 30 points three weeks before the election," Bergmann said of Public Opinion Strategies.

Bunker pulled his television ads in the state Senate District 9 primary -- on the advice of his consultants who had seen the poll results -- and ended up losing to fellow Republican Dennis Nolan.

"We have one of the most respected pollsters and he shows this as being a neck-and-neck race," Bergmann said.

Slanker said the poll was most telling when voters were asked to rate their view of a candidate as favorable or unfavorable.

Herrera's unfavorable rating was 32 percent compared with his 30 percent favorable rating. By contrast Porter's favorable to unfavorable ratio is 40 percent to 15 percent.

Bergmann declined to say what Herrera will spend on television ads, but did say his candidate is well on his way to the campaign's $2 million goal.

Slanker said Porter has already purchased ad spots through the month of October and will have spent more than $1 million on television commercials before Nov. 5.