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Dooley negative ad targets seniors, Remington poll shows Stenger ahead

Saint Louis, Mo. — Embattled St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley released another negative ad today targeting his primary opponent, county councilman Steve Stenger. The ad comes one week after Dooley released an explosive ad looking to tie Stenger to sex traffickers he represented in court during his time as a public defender and just days after a Republican research group released a poll showing Dooley far behind his challenger.

Charlie Dooley
Charlie Dooley

The new ad, which was shown to the press today by Dooley spokesperson, Linda Goldstein, accuses Stenger of flip-flopping on a senior living development project in Oakville.

The ad touches on a vigorously debated development project in South County last year. A planned housing project for seniors received unanimous approval from the Council before local residents — claiming they had not been properly notified of the project or of the public meetings held to decide its fate — demanded the project be re-evaluated. In an unprecedented move, the County Council sent the project back to the Planning Commission despite its already getting approval.

The move to send the project back for review was supported by Stenger, who also supported the original development. The Dooley campaign’s new ad looks to characterize Stenger’s support as flip-flopping.

But Stenger’s campaign says that his support for the project as well as the resolution sending it back to the Planning Commission are not incompatible. They say that Stenger voted to have the project reconsidered after his initial support when local residents raised a fracas. They contend the move shows he is responsive to concerns of constituents and not unbending in solving problems. Stenger’s campaign says that Dooley is hoping to exploit manipulated facts.

“Not surprisingly, Charlie Dooley has his facts wrong again,” the campaign wrote in a statement. “Steve Stenger has always stood up for seniors. He stood up against Charlie Dooley to keep property taxes low. Steve also understands that seniors on fixed incomes suffer the most from increased taxes which is a direct result of the Dooley Administration’s fiscal mismanagement.”

The development was ultimately approved despite the back-and-fourth, with Stenger ultimately voting for its construction. The Dooley campaign is hoping to capitalize on the fight and paint Stenger as a lawmaker that won’t support senior issues. But the release of two negative ads in one week and the recently publicized results of a poll from a Kansas City-based firm show that Dooley’s campaign may be running from behind.

Steve Stenger
Steve Stenger

Remington Research Group released a poll last Friday showing Stenger with a 13 point lead over Dooley with 22 percent of the vote still up for grabs. The Dooley campaign dismissed the poll, saying the automated nature of the poll made it unreliable, and that primary races were notoriously difficult to poll accurately. Jeff Roe, one of the most powerful Republican political consultant in the state, owns Remington Research Group. Democrat Dooley’s campaign says they don’t put much stock into his findings.

Titus Bond of Remington says that the methodology is similar to that of Public Policy Polling.

“As long as you have the appropriate methodology, automated polls are very reliable sources of numbers for a race,” Bond said. “Obviously it’s expected that the campaign that is behind in the poll would look to discredit it or downplay it. But we’re very comfortable with the results and our methodology.”

Bond said the firm didn’t notify either campaign that it was conducting the poll and it didn’t share the results directly with either. Bond said that Remington was interested in polling the race because it was “the most interesting in the state” right now and because no other public polling had been conducted.

“Republican or Democrat, we are all interested in politics,” Bond said. “And either way, we are interested in looking at numbers and informing the public.”

The poll and Dooley’s recent shift to full-tilt negative suggests that the campaign is at the very least concerned about August 5.