Kernan trailing Daniels in 2 polls

Two polls released in the last week show Republican challenger Mitch Daniels leading Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan in the contest for the Indiana statehouse, but both campaigns say the election is still contentiously neck-and-neck and too close to judge through a poll.\nIn a poll released Saturday conducted by Research 2000 on behalf of The South Bend Tribune and WSBT-TV in South Bend, Daniels held a two-point lead over Kernan, 44 to 42 percent, and was well within the 4 percent margin of error. Fourteen percent responded that they were undecided.\nSurveyUSA, conducting research on behalf of WXIN-TV in Indianapolis, released a poll Friday that gave Daniels a larger advantage, reporting with a double-digit lead over Kernan, 53 to 41 percent. The poll, with a margin of error of 3.8 percent, noted 4 percent of respondents said they would vote for someone else and 2 percent were undecided.\nBoth polls were conducted from Sept. 7 through 9. Research 2000 surveyed 600 likely voters who said they regularly vote in state elections. SurveyUSA similarly polled 687 likely voters.\nTina Noel, campaign spokeswoman for Kernan, said the campaign believes the SurveyUSA poll is an anomaly compared to the other polls that have been released publicly.\n"This race remains extremely close, and that's exactly where we thought it would be right now," Noel said.\nBill Oesterle, Daniels' campaign manager, said he didn't think he had an idea where the range of poll numbers fell. \n"Frankly, the numbers probably move everyday," Oesterle said. "When they're that imperfect, you just have to run the campaign and run the campaign assuming you're a couple of points behind."\nBoth campaigns expressed doubts with the current nature of polls.\nNoel said the Kernan campaign conducts its own internal polling, which as a policy is not released to the media. She said it's necessary to proceed with caution when analyzing polls.\n"I can tell you that most of the polling that is done by outside groups is either skewed because it is conducted on behalf of partisan organizations or doesn't adequately represent Democrat voters in Indiana," she said.\nOesterle said the Daniels campaign does not conduct its own internal polling. The campaign will see research conducted by the state Republican Party or the Republican Governors Association, but Oesterle said Daniels did not want a poll-driven campaign.\n"From my standpoint, as a campaign manager, it's nice to see polls when we're in the lead," he said. "But there's a problem. (The quality of) polling in the U.S. has been deteriorating."\nOesterle said much of the problem extends from an inability to contact and accurately rate voters. \n"The no-call list, people only using their cell phones, caller I.D. -- those things reduce the statistical quality of polling. There have been some horrible, horrible errors in polling in Indiana in the last three or four election cycles, and the polling was dead-wrong," Oesterle said.\nNevertheless, he said the Daniels campaign looks at polls as "feedback" and from "a trajectory standpoint," but not a specific indication about the governor's race. \nBoth campaigns have agreed to one 90-minute gubernatorial debate, set for Sept. 28 at Franklin College. They will be joined by Libertarian candidate Kenn Gividen.\nThe polls also asked questions regarding the presidential and senatorial campaigns in this November's election.\nAccording to Research 2000, President Bush leads Sen. John Kerry by 16 points. The Bush-Cheney campaign took 54 percent of the vote in the poll, and Kerry-Edwards took 38 percent. Eight percent said they were undecided. SurveyUSA had the spread larger for Bush -- 60 to 36 percent -- with 2 percent undecided.\nAdditionally, in both polls Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh holds a wide lead over his Republican opponent Marvin Scott. \nResearch 2000 said 62 percent of respondents said they would re-elect Bayh, a former two-term governor of Indiana, for a second term in the Senate, while 26 percent would vote for Scott. Twelve percent were undecided.\nBayh took 64 percent to Scott's 28 percent, with 2 percent undecided, in the SurveyUSA poll.\n-- Contact staff writer Tony Sams at ajsams@indiana.edu.