Memorandum

Date:

July 14, 2015

To:

Interested Parties

From:

Lauren Spangler
M urphy M aintains His Edge In
Iowas CD-01 Dem ocratic Prim ary

According to the results of a recent survey1, Pat Murphy holds a clear edge over both
Monica Vernon and Gary Kroeger in a 3-way Democratic primary contest in Iowas 1st
Congressional District. Indeed, while Murphy has kept a low profile since November, he is
the favorite of primary voters here despite months of active campaigning from Vernon and
Kroeger.
At the outset, Murphy leads Vernon, 43 to 34 percent, in spite of the fact that both are
essentially equally known at this stage, with 76 percent of primary voters identifying Murphy
and 69 percent familiar with Vernon. Kroeger trails considerably, capturing 12 percent of
voter support, with another 12 percent remaining undecided today. At this point, Vernon is

only able to capture one third of the vote overall, derived almost entirely from her Linn
County base, which comprises 30 percent of the expected vote in the primary. Should
another candidate from Linn County enter this contest and peel votes away from Vernon
there, her base among primary voters is likely to crumble.
In a two-way race pitting Murphy against Vernon, Murphys edge grows to double-digits, and
he captures majority support, leading Vernon, 51 to 40 percent. Notably, Murphy leads
among both women (47 to 41 percent) and men (54 to 38 percent). More importantly, after
voters hear balanced, negative information about both Murphy and Vernon, simulating likely
attacks against each of them, Murphys lead doubles, and he edges Vernon, 57 to 35
percent overall. Notably, Murphy triples his advantage among women after this exercise,
leading among them, 55 to 37 percent.
It is abundantly clear from these initial data that Murphy begins a Democratic primary
contest against likely opponents in a solid position, both in his base of Dubuque and outside
it. Vernon sees no advantage among her natural base of women, despite being the only
woman candidate in this race, and while likely attacks against Murphy fall flat among
women, those lobbed at Vernon prove devastating to her.
1

st

These findings are based on a survey of 350 likely June Democratic primary voters in Iowas 1 Congressional District. Calling
took place from July 7-8, 2015, and interviews were conducted by professional interviewers supervised by Myers Research |
Strategic Services staff. The data were stratified to reflect the projected geographical contribution to the total expected vote. The
margin of error associated with these data at a 95 in 100 percent confidence level is +/- 5.2 percent. The margin of error for
subgroups is greater and varies.
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