Poll: Inslee, McKenna in Virtual Tie

By Steven Shepard  //  May 31, 2012 | 1:09 p.m.

A new poll in the Washington State governor's race, conducted by the Seattle-based public affairs firm Strategies 360 and released on Thursday, shows Republican state Attorney General Rob McKenna leading former Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee by a statistically-insignificant margin of 4 points.

McKenna leads Inslee, 43 percent to 39 percent, according to the poll, which has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.4 percentage points. Three percent of likely voters prefer another candidate, and 15 percent are undecided. The race is little changed from a previous poll from the firm, conducted last September, that showed McKenna leading Inslee by 7 points.

Strategies 360 employs both Democrats and Republicans. The head of Strategies 360 ran Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell's 2000 campaign.

Democrats favor Inslee in the poll, 79 percent to 7 percent, while McKenna leads among Republicans, 85 percent to 6 percent. Among independents, McKenna leads, 43 percent to 21 percent, though 35 percent of independents said they favored another candidate or were undecided.

Inslee leads McKenna in King County, which includes Seattle and its suburbs, and also in the areas around the Puget Sound that Inslee represented in Congress. But McKenna sports big leads in the rest of Western Washington, in addition to the traditional Republican territories east of the Cascades.

Inslee, despite resigning his House seat after being elected to his seventh term in 2010, is little-known in the state. A majority of likely voters, 52 percent, say they are unfamiliar with Inslee or have no opinion of him. McKenna has a little more name identification, and it is a positive for his campaign: 37 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of him, compared to 19 percent who have an unfavorable opinion. Forty-two percent of likely voters are unfamiliar with him or have no opinion. Inslee and McKenna are vying to succeed Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire, whose legacy after two terms in Olympia is mixed: Likely voters are split on her favorability (44 percent favorable, 44 percent unfavorable). Thirty-eight percent of likely voters believe the state is headed in the right direction, compared to 44 percent who think the state is on the wrong track. McKenna faces some likely headwinds at the top of the ticket, the poll shows. President Obama leads Mitt Romney among likely Washington State voters, 51 percent to 40 percent. The poll was conducted May 22-24, surveying 500 likely voters.

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