Latest Jackson mayoral poll suggests three-man race
Democratic pollster Mark Chism has released his latest voter survey in the Jackson mayoral race. It points to three leaders in the pack of 10 Democratic candidates.
Jackson’s incumbent mayor, Frank Melton, and Ward 6 Councilman Marshand Crisler each drew 25% of respondents’ support in the poll. Former mayor Harvey Johnson took third place with 20%.
Chism told reporters the poll was conducted Friday evening, with more than 500 Jackson households contacted by phone.
This is the third such poll that Chism’s Zata|3 consulting firm has conducted in this race. He faces some criticism for not naming every one of the 10 candidates.
The information below comes directly from a communique sent by Chism to reporters Sunday night. We present it here for viewers’ reference; WLBT has not independently confirmed this data or conducted our own polling:
Friends,
Friday evening we repeated the survey. (We had 558 completes.) The summary is provided below. Email me if you want the pivot tables (for breakdowns by ward, age, race, gender). In short, not much has changed in a week. Crisler is the favorite among white voters and Melton and Johnson lead among Black voters. Once the candidates go up on TV and radio we could see significant movement.
We’ve said from the outset that Frank Melton and Harvey Johnson have the highest floors and lowest ceilings of all the candidates—-they begin with a larger base but their upside is limited. People know Melton, and when reminded about Harvey Johnson, can easily form an opinion on his strengths and weaknesses based on his tenure as Mayor. Low ceilings, but with 11 people in the race, you don’t need much— 20% of the vote could get you in the runoff. The challenge for the next tier of candidates is to fund a media effort to nudge ahead of either of these and make the runoff. Crisler appears to be best positioned at this point.
Magnolia Tribune
