Poll: Carolyn Goodman holds big lead in Las Vegas mayor’s race

Las Vegas mayoral candidate Carolyn Goodman is well ahead of the large field as the race heads into the final month before the primary election, according to a new Las Vegas Review-Journal/8NewsNow poll.

Thanks to name recognition of her husband, outgoing Mayor Oscar Goodman, she would capture 36.5 percent of the vote, more than double that of her closest competitor, Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown, according to polling conducted by Las Vegas-based Magellan Research.

Brown's 17.5 percent led fellow Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani's 11.7 percent, while Las Vegas City Councilman Steve Ross garnered 6 percent and businessman Victor Chaltiel 4.8 percent.

Twenty percent remained undecided in the poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The rest of the candidates in the 18-person field combined grabbed less than 4 percent.

The telephone survey of 600 likely municipal election voters was conducted late last week, less than a week after most leading candidates had launched television campaign ads.

"It's not hard to imagine that name recognition and the enormous popularity her husband has enjoyed through this year has certainly contributed" to Carolyn Goodman's early lead, said Marvin Longabaugh of Magellan Research.

Oscar Goodman, the former mob lawyer who can't seek a fourth term as mayor because of term limits, trounced his primary candidates in 2003 and 2007 with more than 80 percent of the vote.

Longabaugh said he didn't expect the numbers to change much in the month leading up to the April 5 city primary as voters rarely change their minds after committing to a candidate.

Longabaugh said he expected the nearly 20 percent of undecided voters to split among the candidates in roughly the same percentages.

However, television advertising could tip the scales, Longabaugh said. "The media buys are going to say a lot."

He predicted Carolyn Goodman would narrowly miss winning the office outright by taking more than 50 percent of the primary vote, and would face the second-place finisher in the June 7 general election.

Carolyn Goodman's campaign manager, Bradley Mayer, said he would run the campaign as though she is behind by 20 percentage points.

"You run scared or you don't run at all," he said, quoting former U.S. Sen. and Nevada Gov. Richard Bryan.

Jim Ferrence, Brown's campaign manager, said he expects the race to tighten in coming weeks as candidates ratchet up campaign mailers and television advertising.

"These numbers are reflective of Carolyn Goodman's name recognition and not a lot more than that," he said.

Giunchigliani also expressed optimism at her chances, saying her campaign polls, by the Washington, D.C., firm Benenson Strategy Group, put her in second place, ahead of Brown, saying, "I'm feeling really good about what our numbers are showing."

Goodman is enjoying the early lead because of name recognition, but Giunchigliani said voters will be swayed by her grass-roots campaign that so far has focused on phone calls and door knocking.

"It's not about names and the past," she said.

"It's about the future."

Chaltiel and Ross could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Other primary candidates are: A. "Duke" Breuer, Katherine "Katie" Duncan, Joe Falco, Tim Gamble, George Harris, Larry M. Jeppesen, Deborah Love, Christine Montez, Marlene Rogoff, Abdul H. Shabazz, Ed Uehling, Angel Vasquez and Anthony "little guy" Wernicke.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at
bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.