Mayoral poll puzzler: Why would ‘undecideds’ be increasing?

Looking at the results of the three polls conducted on the Atlanta mayor’s race by Insider Advantage, one thing had me confused: the percentage of undecided voters seemed to be growing as the election draws closer.

For instance, the poll released Sept. 4 showed undecideds at 12 percent. That number had risen to 23 percent by Sept. 11 and crawled up slightly to 24 percent in a poll released yesterday.

That seemed counter-intuitive; the rule of thumb is that the undecided column should shrink as voters find out more about the candidates. So I called a couple of veteran pollster/politicos to see why we might be seeing these results.

Rusty Paul, a former state GOP head and campaign consultant, says he’s seen this phenomenon before. Voters can favor a candidate early on simply because of name recognition, he says, and then grow more uncertain about their choice as they learn more about all the candidate.

Beth Shapiro, a Democratic pollster, basically agrees, but doesn’t believe that’s what’s going on with the mayor’s race. Instead, she says the Sept. 4 result is likely an anomaly. In other words, it’s wrong. That’s the only way she can make sense of the later results that show undecideds hanging at about a quarter of the electorate.

“I think voters are still kicking the tires,” she says, comparing the mayor candidates to used cars — and fairly uninspiring ones at that.