Both campaigns for South Dakota’s lone congressional seat are pointing to different polls released this week by each campaign that show favorable results.
However, both show Democratic candidate Tim Bjorkman trailing behind Republican Dusty Johnson.
The poll announced by candidate Tim Bjorkman was completed by Public Policy Polling. It shows the former first circuit court judge trailing by ten points, with a nearly four percent margin of error.
Tim Bjorkman says name recognition is helping his opponent at this point.
“I’m a person that’s never been in the political arena before,” Bjorkman says. “So it’s understandable that I have a name recognition issue. The encouraging thing is, though, that once people get to know us, know who we are, our favorability ratings are quite high – significantly higher than Dusty’s.”
The Bjorkman survey was conducted by automated telephone interviews.
However, Bjorkman’s opposition—Dusty Johnson—released a survey that shows Johnson ahead by 21 percent, instead of just ten.
That poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies.
Johnson says he’s confident in the results.
“Tim’s own poll shows he’s down double digits,” Johnson says. “If he wins three quarters of the undecided voters he’ll still lose. My poll shows this race is not particularly close and his poll shows this race is not particularly close, so I actually think there’s a fair amount of agreement on that point.”
The Johnson survey was conducted among 400 likely voters, including 160 by cell phone respondents.
The November election is still three months away.