400-person poll shows Hill ahead in 9th District race

A WISH-TV poll released Tuesday night shows Democratic candidate Baron Hill taking a slight lead in the closely-watched 9th District race.\nThe telephone poll of 400 likely voters conducted Sept. 5-8 found 46 percent supported Hill, while 40 percent supported incumbent Rep. Mike Sodrel, R-9th, according to The Associated Press.\n14 percent were undecided. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points. Libertarian candidate Eric Schansberg was not included in the poll.\n"Baron Hill has traveled through southern Indiana day-in and day-out and this only confirms what he has heard -- that 9th District voters are hungry for a change," Hill spokeswoman Abby Curran said.\nThe poll found strong support for candidates within their own party -- 85 percent of Democrats backed Hill and 76 percent of Republicans backed Sodrel. Hill scored better with independents; 52 percent of whom said they supported Hill, compared to 29 percent for Sodrel.\nSodrel's campaign downplayed the importance of the poll Wednesday.\n"It has a high margin of error, and if it was automated it's not very reliable at all," Sodrel spokesman Cam Savage said. "This is early in the race before a lot of grassroots work has begun ... The only poll that we really care about is the one at the end."\nSchansberg said he was "disappointed" the poll didn't ask voters about his candidacy.\n"I hope they didn't include me because they're outside of the district, and they're not aware of the interest my candidacy is generating in the media here," he said. \nHill announced Tuesday that he will participate in a two-issue debate focusing on energy and education Oct. 1 on the IU-Southeast campus. \nSchansberg, who is an economics professor on the campus, has signed on for the debate as well.\nSavage said Sodrel has not yet agreed to the debate because he is unsure if Congress will be out of session in time for him to attend. He also said the format is not yet finalized.\nThe format for the debates has been a point of contention between Hill and Sodrel this election. Hill has pushed for a series of hour-long debates that focus on one or two issues. Sodrel prefers multi-issue debates such as the one held at IU's WTIU studios Aug. 31.\nSchansberg has proposed a compromise of three single-issue debates and a final multi-issue debate which Hill has publicly accepted.\nWhen Hill and Sodrel previously faced off for the 9th District seat in 2002 and 2004 there was only one debate each election.\n"Already we've done as many debates as Hill gave us in '02 and '04," Savage said.\nHill was the district's representative from 1998 until 2004, when Sodrel defeated Hill for the seat by fewer than 1,500 votes.