Poll Shows Foley Trailing GOP Rival for Seat
House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) trails his Republican challenger by 19 percentage points with less than seven weeks before the Nov. 8 congressional elections, according to a new opinion poll.
George Nethercutt, an attorney and former chairman of the Spokane County Republican Party, is favored by 58% of voters, compared to 39% for Foley, said the survey conducted for KHQ-TV of Spokane.
Foley, who has served in Congress since 1965, faces the possibility of becoming the first sitting House speaker to be turned out of office.
He has faced criticism in his largely rural district for his support of gun-control legislation and was one of the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to overturn Washington state’s term-limit initiative, which would have forced him to step down in 1998.
The telephone survey of 500 registered voters in Foley’s 5th Congressional District had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
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