Ben Smith Pushes Hakeem's "Privately-financed" Anonymous Pollaganda

So what do we have here? Daily News blogger/columnist Ben Smith, ever with his ear to the ground, posts his "exclusive" results of an anonymous, privately-financed poll on the 57th AD race between Batson, Hamilton and Jeffries, showing a big lead for Jeffries.

First we'll say straight out that our feet are on the ground in the 57th and this poll is Wack. We assure you.

We take serious issue with this "journalist" posting a privately-financed poll without saying who financed it. We quote Ben Smith here:

I've obtained a full copy of a privately-financed poll of the 57th Assembly District. The poll was conducted by Tom Kiley, a nationally-known pollster based in Boston. I was given access to it on the condition I not identify my source.

The results show Hakeem Jeffries with a strong lead:

Hakeem Jeffries: 51%
Bill Batson: 17%
Freddie Hamilton: 6%

23% of voters said they aren't sure who they'll vote for.

The poll, taken on September 4-5, surveyed 299 people who said they were registered Democrats and would either definitely (90%) or probably (10%) vote on Tuesday.

Ben, it's the source that counts. Who financed this poll? No independent party of course. Did Hakeem have enough dough to do this poll? The only other private financier who'd have an interest in polling the 57th AD is Forest City Ratner. We conclude that the anonymous, privately-financed poll was either financed by Forest City or the Jeffries campaign.

In which case this is pollaganda used to depress the Batson vote which won't happen. There is no groundswell of support for Jeffries. The energized voters in the 57th are the anti-Atlantic Yards voters which is why Jeffries put out his Liar Flier earlier this week in an attempt to co-opt Batson's popular and firm stance against Ratner's over-development.

We'd also like to see the full copy of the privately-financed poll, Ben. How about posting it. Clearly Ben's source is the financier. We agree with Ben that 299 polled is a small sample, and even more skewed considering it was done on Labor Day weekend. We were polled that weekend on this race but oddly we weren't asked any questions about our likelihood of voting and there was no option for "aren't sure who I am voting for." Yet we don't think two polls have been done for the 57th, so it is curious. Did this pollster pull voter determination and undecideds out his hat? Or was there a second poll?

Additionally, this poll was done before:

-- a Batson mailing that arrived in our box yesterday;

-- Councilwoman Letitia James endorsed Batson;

-- The Brooklyn Papers endorsed Batson;

-- The Brooklyn Papers published its interview of the 3 contenders for the 57th.

-- a Letitia James robocall for Batson we got on our phone today;


We fully expect that this poll, WHOEVER financed it, will be yesterday's trash by Tuesday.

Since Ben isn't saying, we can only guess, and our final guess is that this is a Forest City Ratner financed poll. Who else would it be?