With less than two weeks until the Nov. 4 General Election and absentee voters already sending ballots in, local races are coming down to the wire with last minute efforts to get out the vote.
Last week, TurlockCityNews.com conducted an automated calling poll, done by Dane & Associates on Oct. 17 and 18, asking voters how they intend to vote on Measure B — the seven-year half-cent sales tax increase devoted to Turlock roads — the Turlock Mayoral race, and the City Council race.
The results are based on the random responses of 304 likely Turlock voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. 8,049 calls went to voicemail with many calling back but only the automated results were tallied.
Regarding Measure B, 33.5 percent of likely voters stated indicated voting “no,” while 36.84 percent indicated voting “yes;” 29.61 percent were undecided. Measure B requires the approval of a two-thirds majority (66.7 percent) of voters.
For the Turlock Mayoral race, 39.93 percent of likely Turlock voters indicated that if the election were held that day, they would vote for Gary Soiseth; 27.21 percent indicated they would vote for Mike Brem, with 32.86 percent still undecided.
In the Turlock City Council race, voters will have the opportunity to select up to two of the five candidates on the ballot, where the top two vote-getters will take the open seats.
While 40.65 of likely voters were still undecided, Bill Dehart, Jr. took 19.31 percent, followed by Matthew Jacob with 14.84 percent, Forrest J. White with 12.80 percent, Sergio Alvarado with 8.74 percent and Donald Babadalir with 3.66 percent.
For a complete breakdown of how people indicated their first and second choices,
Dehart was first choice for 19.93 percent, second for 18.55 percent; Jacob was first choice for 18.82 percent, second choice 9.95 percent; White was first choice for 13.65 percent, second for 11.76 percent; Alvarado was first choice for 9.23 percent, second for 8.15 percent; Babadalir was first choice for 2.95 percent, second for 4.53 percent.
Among those undecided, 35.42 percent selected the option as their first choice, while 47.06 selected it as their second choice.
TurlockCityNews.com’s survey was in effort to understand likely voters’ sentiments toward the impending local election, though the sample size was relatively small, numbers from past elections have shown just how close some citywide races have been.
Links to all the Turlock candidates' profiles can be found here: Turlock Mayor/City Council Candidate Questionnaires/Profiles
Below, readers can take a poll with the same questions asked in the TurlockCityNews.com phone poll.
I think everyone expected these results. Nice to know this election has pretty much been decided already.
I reject these survey results. There is no possibility that the tax could go from a approximate 67% Turlock support last election to an estimated 50% split vote. Nothing shows that there has been a campaign to stop it but there has been a very strong campaign to support it.
The results on the Mayor election have to be fixed too. There is not way Mayor Lazar’s pick can be losing this bad.
I do not believe this survey to be truthful or accurate. The election will prove what we all know is that this tabloid blog is biased. People that are paying attention see that the results support the candidates advertising on this site.
I have commented on the exit polling results and the data and trends story Tcn published and they were all very telling and now I can see correct in predicting the election results.
Going as far back as this small polling sample it appears as if Tcn knew how the election would turn out from the start. All the telling signs show the same positions give or take a little in percentages but they are almost all spot on.
I have the web pages listed here to see
https://www.turlockcitynews.com/politics/item/4015-will-online-trends-and-data-translate-to-votes-on-election-day
https://www.turlockcitynews.com/politics/item/4051-4-45-p-m-update-exit-polls-showing-soiseth-jacob-leading-respective-races-measure-b-not-getting-passing-numbers
I was curious because I saw someone say the exit polling was not genuine and fake in that this site was paying people to say they voted for Soiseth in their survey after they voted in the real election. Clearly they now look foolish and must be embarrassed.
Kudos again to the reporters and staff on a very thorough coverage of the election process in Turlock. Turlockians are very fortunate to have access to this service for free.
Loyal reader,
Marty
Turlockers*
Turlockians is so tacky.