When in trouble, release a positive poll!

According to a new poll released today from Survey USA, it’s possible that these two complaints that have been filed with the Ohio Elections Commission over Rep. Jean Schmidt’s inaccurate endorsement and educational degree claims won’t matter.

The poll, which was done for WCPO-TV, shows that the Miami Township Republican holds a “massive” lead over Republican Bob McEwen, who is challenging Schmidt in the May 2 GOP primary election.

According to the poll, 55 percent of respondents say they plan to vote for Schmidt, 30 percent say they’ll vote for McEwen, 11 percent say they’ll vote for another candidate, and 4 percent are undecided.

“We are very excited by the WCPO Poll. Our polling is trending slightly better, but we are happy to have the public confirmation of the numbers,” Campaign Manager Allen Freeman said in a glowing statement about the poll.

McEwen spokesman Michael Harlow had a different response: “We would question the accuracy of any voice-automated polling, first of all,” he said. “I also would question the accuracy of any poll that shows four percent undecided voters. That’s unheard of, really.”

This poll was conducted by random telephone calls from March 31 to April 2 and has a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percentage points.

It survey included 1,500 adults, of which just 412 said they were Republicans who are likely to vote in the primary. (That’s a significant point. It means that two-thirds of the people who make up this poll aren’t going to vote in the election that the poll is purporting to measure!)

That didn’t stop Freeman from continuing to extol the beauties of this poll:

“Clearly Congresswoman Schmidt is now very well known and extremely popular. Her opponent only leads her among anti-war liberals. This is a very bad day for the McEwen camp,” Freeman said.

More Freeman: “Jean Schmidt will win this primary by a huge margin. We will win Anderson Township where our polling has us up by almost 50 percent. There is no where McEwen can hide.”