Sarah Steelman fell short in her quest for the GOP's nomination for Senator from Missouri to take on Clare McCaskill in November. Her just missing out on coming in second, from last place, was a remarkable result clearly made possible in a large part by Sarah Palin's endorsement and active campaigning for her.
The Daily Kos pollster PPP Polling (D) got the result completely wrong, quite possibly because of some inherent anti-Palin bias in their analysis. After all, PPP polling said that in Texas "Perry's candidate (Dewhurst) will defeat Palin's candidate" (Cruz).They also underestimated Cruz's margin of victory in their final poll.
The last PPP Poll, published on the Sunday before the election had this prediction ( and there was no mention of the possible Palin effect in their final summing up.)
Brunner 35% Akin 30% Steelman 25%
And the result on election day was;
Brunner 30% Akin 36% Steelman 29%
Not only did PPP get the winner wrong by 6 points, but they were wrong on Steelman by 4 points-outside most recognized margin of error allowances. Steelman's rise of over 4 points in effectively a few days, came subsequent to Palin's visit which is, surely, the most logical explanation.
Why Steelman did not win can be put down to, primarily surely, the massive financial disadvantage she had. Brunner was reported to have spent $10,000,000 of his own money to Steelman's $800k.
It is very difficult, even with a Palin endorsement, to overcome months of massive negative tv adverts which proved a bridge too far. Even the leftist Washington Post agreed that Palin is a major force, and that Steelman's run would be a huge challenge for Palin to get across the finish line.
The Washington Post, admitted, as the MSM now has to after Ted Cruz's and Deb Fischer's come from behind wins, that Palin is having a significant effect on who the GOP voters choose for November. They advised that Steelman's efforts would be "Palin's biggest test yet". Well, Palin has passed Washpost's test with flying colors. It will be interesting to see what the next hurdle they place in front of her, as if of course the GOP voters care a jot.
To give a truer example of the massive come from behind challenge Steelman had the poll previous to the PPP one had Steelman 20 points behind Brunner !
Polling in June had Brunner at 40% to Steelman's 20%. In May, Brunner was the overwhelming choice of Tea Party supporters whose support Palin obviously turned around by her endorsment of Steelman.
Palin's rermakable record of endorsement winners-6 in a row before the Missouri result, is hardly dented given the massive disadvantages Steelman had, and the relatively short time Palin ahd to try and assist her to overcome them. The biggest losers are the polling firms and MSM who consistantly write her off who end up with egg on their collective faces like PPP.
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