Conspiracy Theory or.... well, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Theory? (vote at end)— CA120 (@CA_120) April 27, 2018
The surprise of the US Senate race poll by @BerkeleyIGS had unknown James Bradley coming up to challenge @kdeleon for the second spot. The order of the candidates in the poll was as follows.
Notice something? pic.twitter.com/8GjZWZLPoI
John Wildermuth and Joe Garofoli at The San Francisco Chronicle:
A new U.S. Senate poll that shows a Republican hopeful leaping into a near dead heat for second place may say more about the state of the GOP than it does about little-known and under-financed James P. Bradley.
While the poll by the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein on top with 28 percent support among likely voters, Bradley, a Laguna Niguel (Orange County) businessman, moved into third at 10 percent, just a tick behind Democratic state Sen. Kevin de León’s 11 percent.
“Why Bradley and not the other 10 Republicans running for Senate?” asked Mark DiCamillo, the poll’s director. “That’s the big question.”
There might be an easy answer.
Since the poll was conducted online, it could include the list of all 32 candidates for Senate, rather than the much smaller number of selected front-runners used in telephone polls.
The candidates were listed in alphabetical order, and Bradley was second on the list of 11 GOP contestants.
And the first Republican on that list? Arun K. Bhumitra, a teacher/engineer/businessman from Torrance (Los Angeles County).
Neither Bhumitra nor any GOP candidate other than Bradley received much more than 2 percent in the poll, suggesting that people looking to vote Republican just picked someone with a name they liked from high on the list.
Also note that two of the top five Republicans in the Senate poll are Hispanic and "John Jack Crew" sounds like a 1980s band.In the CA primary, one possible reason why John Cox, Travis Allen, and James Bradley are getting GOP poll support: WASPy-sounding names. The questionnaire listed Arun K. Bhumitra before Bradley, but he got little traction. https://t.co/gP4vaebQnY @joegarofoli @jfwildermuth— Jack Pitney (@jpitney) April 27, 2018
