I don't buy the poll in the San Francisco Chronicle that shows Matt Gonzalez ahead in the runoff election on December 9th.
Polls have biases. I called the California polls wrong in August at the beginning of the Arnold race. I pointed out that the polls undercounted people who had not voted in the last election and grossly undercounted the potential turnout in the Central Valley. The polls got more accurate over the second month as they corrected their biases. The Field Poll was correct from the start.
The polls of San Francisco have a bias that is not clear yet. There are several factors at work.
Polls are usually based on calls to random numbers within select geographic prefixes. A high percentage of San Franciscans are now primarily on their cell phones so they don't get into telephone polls. Another group only has a land line in order to have DSL. The remaining people, who have land lines and use them, are an unknown and small part of the population with an unknown voting bias.
The swing district in the coming runoff election is the Sunset. The Sunset is different in many behavioral ways than other parts of San Francisco. I am sure Gonzalez won't get any support there, but DA candidate Harris might get support there. Sunset residents support the police who hate Harris's opponent (Hallinan) more than they dislike Harris. The Chronicle poll showed both Gonzalez and Harris doing well. The election will give me a clue about the emerging bias of telephone polls in San Francisco.
After Nov. 24th when many people will begin the migratation of their land line phone number to their cell phone .... a whole new bias will be introduced, next year, into phone polls.
A lot of people will also be pissed to get unsolicited calls on their cell phones.