SYRACUSE, N.Y. – “Well, I can’t do it here anymore,” said Jeff Stonecash, Syracuse University Political Scientist.
After two decades, Jeff Stonecash is ending his polling work. He was told to halt any on-campus efforts after complaints, centered on a poll out in April. That survey showed republican Dale Sweetland and democrat Dan Maffei virtually even in the race for Congress, with a large undecided block. Maffei had claimed an edge headed into his second congressional bid.
“You find that if a person is a first run, builds up a little name ID, it evaporates pretty fast,” Stonecash said. “You don't come back with a lot of name ID if you were an unknown and he was.”
At the time, Maffei campaign manager Mike Whyland, who also headed the campaign in 2006, blasted the survey. He noted the same pollster had shown congressman James Walsh with a 13 point lead two years ago, just before he narrowly won re-election by a few percentage points.
Under orders from the University administration, a well known SU pollster has put a halt to his work providing political polling for republicans, democrats and media outlets. Our Bill Carey says Jeff Stonecash ran afoul of a congressional candidate's campaign.
“When we asked people the question, ‘who are you going to vote for?’ That's what we got. But when we looked at the undecided, which no one asked about, what's their composition? I was pretty certain and, I'm not making this up, but I said to Jim I think you probably will win with about 52 or 53 percent of the vote,” Stonecash said.
In 2007, Mike Whyland was campaign manager for democrat Bill Magnarelli in his effort to become Onondaga County Executive. At the time, he was complaining about another Stonecash poll, this one conducted for the Syracuse Post Standard. It showed republican Joanie Mahoney leading the race by 21 points. Whyland said the race was a dead heat, that Mahoney would not win by 21 points. And he was right. She won by 22.
Stonecash says he has never cooked results for a client.
“Anyone who would hire somebody who would feed them what they want is pretty stupid,” Stonecash said. “You're just wasting your money.”
Syracuse University won't say who complained, putting an end to the polling work. Mike Whyland from the Maffei campaign says simply, it was a matter for the University to resolve. Stonecash has few doubts about who complained.
“The Maffei campaign did,” said Stonecash.
But they deny it was them.
The Stonecash polling work had never cost the University any money. Stonecash directly paid student volunteers to aid in the work and reimbursed the university for any costs, such as computer and telephone usage.