Denocratic U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy shot back at Republican opponent Sam Caligiuri's new internal poll, which shows the GOP challenger essentially tied with the two-term incumbent.
"Surveying a miniscule sample of 400 voters (for comparison, the Quinnipiac Poll surveys 1,000 voters), asking biased questions, and hiding methodology, response rate, and the party affiliation of the sample, Caligiuri released phony numbers today as a way to build support for a campaign to which very few people are paying attention,'' states a press release put out by the Murphy campaign.
The campaign painted Caligiuri as a candidate struggling to gain traction and unable to win the attention -- and the dollars -- of the national Republican party.
"Caligiuri has a broke campaign treasury, no statewide or national buzz, and a fractured Republican party that only gave him 39% of the primary vote,'' Kenny Curran, Murphy's campaign manager said in the press release.
"Frankly, the only way for him to generate any attention to this race is to manufacture phony results with a slanted poll. Our campaign's internal polling has always shown us with a solid double digit lead, so we know this slapdash poll doesn't add up. We got several calls from furious constituents last week after they received this poll, so we knew there was one in the field trying to create a manufactured head-to-head number. Now we know it was Caligiuri.''
UPDATE: Tiffany Romero Grossman, spokeswoman for the Caligiuri camp, had this to say about Curran's comment:
"Murphy is in denial that his candidacy is in trouble, just as he is in denial when he says that Connecticut's economy is 'good', that he has been an independent voice in Congress when he votes with Pelosi 98% of the time, and that his 'yes' votes to the failed stimulus package and the Wall Street bailouts have left us better off now than we were two years ago. Today's poll results echo the trends that national polling firms are consistently reporting- voters are ready to give the Democratic majority in Congress the boot. In the Fifth District, voters are rejecting the failed Pelosi agenda - and therefore abandoning Chris Murphy - and flocking to Sam's candidacy because he is offering them the better way to create jobs and grow our economy.''
A little more information about the poll: It was done by Adam Geller of National Research. Geller has done work for a number of prominent GOP pols, including N.J. Gov. Chris Christie. In Connecticut, he's done work for former U.S. Rep. Nancy Johnson and has recently completed a poll for Dan Debicella, a Republican congressional candidate in the 4th District.
Geller has also been accused by Democrats of push polling, according to this story in Tucson Weekly.