polls

Picture the scene: a fairly popular President, having amassed a significant amount of political capital, decides its time to cash in and spend some on a tough reform effort for a failing, inadequate system. Many Americans agree that the status quo isn't acceptable long-term but hesitate to sign on to changes that they deem too risky. Members of Congress go out to their districts and are confronted at town hall meetings with frustrated, vocal constituents worried about the risks of the plan. The President's popularity outpaces his policies and in particular, this major reform package. Even with control of both houses of Congress, the package can't survive. The reform fails.

If you feel like you've seen this story before, you're not wrong. The trajectory of the 2009 health care debate seems eerily similar to that of the 2005 battle for Social Security reform. Taking a look at the polling from then and comparing it to the data of today shows the parallels in the situation and shows why the health care debate feels all too familiar.

Similarity #1: Presidential Popularity

First, take a look at a bit of a throwback post from 2006 at MysteryPollster.com where Bush's job approval from January 2005 forward is tracked. Bush began 2005 with job approval over 50% - slightly below where Obama started at the beginning of July (Gallup's 7/05-07/2009 poll had Obama at 56%). The trends are not dissimilar: Charles Franklin's plot of Bush job numbers from January 05 forward shows a similar shrinking of support that looks an awful lot like the Obama job approval chart on the front page. This isn't a particularly surprising finding, but provides context to the other more striking comparisons.

Similarity #2: The Agreement that the Status Quo is Unacceptable

In both the Social Security debate and the health care debate, Americans agree: the system needs major overhaul. While so many other issues fail to get Americans to agree with the crucial "we need to do something" sentiment, both Social Security and health care had that extra boost from a public that agreed: maintaining the current system is not workable long term. In February 2005, Gallup found 73% of Americans said Social Security was "in crisis" or "has major problems". (18% said Social Security was "in crisis").

Compare that to the health care debate of today. Gallup has found that 20% of Americans believe health care is "in crisis" and at least a majority believe it has major problems (unfortunately, Gallup doesn't tell us how large a majority). To flesh that out a bit, Gallup asked the question in November 2008 and found 73% of respondents said that health care was either "in crisis" or had "major problems". Does that number sound familiar?

Similarity #3: Issue Handling

By March 2005, Bush's numbers on issue handling of Social Security were brutal, with an ABC/WaPo poll showing only 35% approving and 56% disapproving. CNN/Gallup had even worse news with only 1 out of 3 approving. Compared to 49% approval shortly after Bush took office, once the issue became a hot topic, Bush's number tanked.

Similarly, Obama's numbers have plummeted on health care since before the debate. In April, during Obama's honeymoon, Pew showed Obama with a 51-26 advantage on health care job approval. By August, he had a 42-43 disadvantage - quite the fall from the earlier numbers. The idea that "the president is more popular than his policies" held true then as it does now. (Just take a look at Mara Liasson's February 2005 NPR story, titled: "Bush More Popular that His Social Security Plan").

In both cases, the President began his administration with the trust and support of the people to fix their given "crisis". In both cases, once the debate flared, their numbers dropped significantly. But it is worthwhile to point out that the comparison is not perfect - the Obama honeymoon numbers were immediately followed by the debate, while Bush had a full four years before tackling Social Security.

At any rate, this is just the basic side-by-side look at the reasons why this health care debate may seem like a bit of a "glitch in the Matrix", giving those who watch politics a sense of deja vu.

Because sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. (This item has been cross posted at Pollster.com)

Ezra Klein says the health care public plan is very popular in polling, so Senate opposition to it means "the Senate hates democracy" and "is resolutely, aggressively, anti-democratic."

Paul Krugman says poll results show that a majority of Americans prefer deficit reduction to higher government spending, but Krugman says "most people don’t know much about macroeconomics" so "the moral for Obama is, of course, to ignore this poll".

Discuss.

NOTE: Aside from the fact that people tend to accept or dismiss polls results based almost entirely on what they already wanted, I think there are two problems with the idea that popular support equals legitimacy, propriety or even democracy.

1. Stated preference (poll) and revealed preference (how people actually behave when making a choice) differ widely.
2. With no real price mechanism through which people can evaluate the costs and benefits of policy, we end up with simultaneous public support for massive spending and minimal taxation.  Well, who doesn't want something for nothing?

#1 is a political problem that can't really be changed - thus, we have a representative democracy, rather than direct democracy.

#2 is a policy problem that both Republicans and Democrats should be doing more to fix - e.g., indexing tax rates to spending, pigovian taxes, federalism, etc.

In addition to the shift in the prolife direction mentioned here:

http://www.thenextright.com/t-d-williams/stunning-reversal-majority-of-a...

We see shifts on other issues in the right-wing direction.

Support for gun control is at its lowest level in 40 years of polling.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_scott_bach/2009/05/support_plummets_for_resrictio...

Four different polls recently point to declining support for gun restrictions as the answer to crime. In October, a Gallup poll found that fewer Americans than ever favor handgun bans, based on Gallup's 49 year history of polling on the issue. Support fell from a high of 60% in 1959 to a low of less than 30% in 2008. The same trend repeats itself in a question on whether more restrictions are needed on the sales of all firearms, not just handguns.

In addition, three different media polls taken in April reflect plummeting support for gun control. CNN found support has fallen by double digits to less than 40% while an ABC News-Washington Post poll found that more than 60% support enforcing current laws against criminals rather than passing new laws restricting the rights of law abiding citizens. NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found that support for a ban on rifles has fallen by a third in the last 18 years.

All of these polls show what peaceable gun owners already know - that support for the Second Amendment is the dominant belief in America today, and the fallacy that restricting the rights of honest citizens will impact crime has been exposed for what it is.

What the heck is going on? How could Americans get so gung ho over the second amendment and life while supporting the most leftwing candidate in history? Maybe you didnt notice during Obama's magnificent campaign last year, but he did the Kabuki dance on multiple issues:

• He came out for tax cuts
• He came out for second amendment rights
• He tried to cater and pander to prolifers - http://www.prolifeproobama.com/

• He opposed gay marriage and the Cali Prop 8
• He forcefully denounced deficits and promised to go after wasteful spending

If he didn't have the track record of the most liberal Senator in the US Senate, you'd might confuse him with a conservative. THAT WAS PROBABLY THE INTENTION. He fooled many uninformed voters into sounding more moderate/open than he really was.

What this has done is make it safe to be pro-life, pro-2ndA, pro-tax-cuts and still support Obama. Since these things in the past were associated with Republicans, people may have been dissuaded from saying they were prolife. They might have thought 'only Republicans hold that position'. This will lead to seeming contradictions, such as many pro-life, pro-2ndA people expressing support for a President who is in reality a pro-abort President and has members of his party eager to ban guns.

Now here's the hard part - come 2010, when the pro-life, pro-2ndA, pro-fiscal responsibility folks who got gulled into voting for Obama in 2008 look at the fruits of the Democrat Congress.... will they still vote for Democrats? Not if they push their gun banning, taxpayer-funded abortions, trillion-dollar deficits and huge boondoggle spending agenda.

Crossposted at Travis Monitor:

http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-is-shifting-right-on-some-i...

Republicans looking for a comeback have yet to come to terms with a basic fact in today's polling: Obama's strongly favorable personal ratings.

Too much of what passes for sea changes in public opinion on policy are in fact residual effects of a narrow partisan advantage magnified by the huge personal popularity of that party's leader. This is how JFK's political position was never seriously dented or in doubt. Or how Ronald Reagan always seemed to bounce back from serious political crises. In Reagan's case, the Gipper's personal magnetism created an opportunity to move the country to the right. Obama is now doing the same for the left.

The tale of the tape is indeed telling here. Obama's personal popularity stayed remarkably stable throughout the course of the campaign, and the average unfavorable rating barely ever cracked 35%. Obama the campaigner looks downright polarizing compared to Obama the President, who now sports a 65/25 fav/unfav in the Pollster.com average.

Why is this important? Republicans right now haven't the slightest idea of how to reduce the President's appeal because they've never actually done it before. It would be one thing if Obama had become a controversial figure during the campaign, like Bill Clinton did in 1992, providing fodder for a comeback once he did get into office, but that possibility scarcely exists today.

While personality may not be everything, and real-world policy outcomes provide opportunities for inflection points, it rarely ever works out that a President's policy agenda is unsuccessful while he remains personally popular. Yes, there are weird situations where a President might be personally loathed (Clinton post-Monica) but politically successful, but not (that I know of) the other way around.

While attempts to remake Republican policy may be all well and good, to pretend the American people will listen to new policy ideas in a vacuum, without reference to their satisfaction (or lack thereof) with Obama is silly.

This hopelessness with respect to Obama's popularity might be cause for more long-ball type thinking and for cultivating charismatic young leaders who too can put an attractive face on conservative ideas, not for seeking short-term tactical wins. Paradoxically, the more irrelevant Republicans become, the easier it is (or should be) to think outside the box. And it is in this intellectual ferment that a comeback will be born.

This kind of story is tiresome.

The Drudge Report banner headline on Friday morning reads, "Poll: 75% of Texans would vote to stay in USA."  What's troubling is not that 75 percent of those polled by Rasmussen Reports would vote to remain in the United States; what's troubling is that 18 percent of those surveyed said they would prefer that Texas secede.

People say a lot of inexplicable things in response to polls.  25% of people say animals deserve the same rights as humans; the percentage of people who say they go to church weekly bears no relationship to the percentage of people actually in church weekly.  Is it really shocking that a certain percentage of people vent about things like this, especially in polls?   Consider these results from old Daily Kos polls...

• If you were President, and the South seceded, you would ... Accept the move... - 66%
• Would we have been better off if ... the South had seceded? Yes - 78%
• In an enlightened act of self interest, the Blue states should ... Secede - 67%
• If America continues on the march to Republicanism, California should ... Secede from the nation! - 94%
• If there were a movement to secede, would you join? ... Yes - 66%
• What Do You Think of a 'Liberal Exodus'? ... I like secession as an option, so let's pick a state to move to. - 61%

Of course, those mean nothing more than "people like to express a sense of frustration at, and independence from, the federal government."  And that's generally healthy.  In fact, it was built into our Bill of Rights.  Everybody gets frustrated when their side is losing; and, as we see lately, the winners often turn into concern trolls.  Don't take them too seriously.

Glug, Glug. Glug........

HAMDEN - A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Connecticut U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd now trailing former Republican Congressman Rob Simmons and two other possible GOP challengers for the 2010 election.The survey of nearly 2,000 registered voters also shows that Dodd is experiencing his lowest job approval numbers, with only 33 percent approving of the job that he's doing and 58 percent disapproving.Pollster Douglas Schwartz says a 33 percent job approval rating is unheard of for a 30-year incumbent.The poll shows Simmons defeating Dodd by a 50 percent to 34 percent margin. Dodd trails state Sen. Sam Caligiuri (kahl-uh-JER'-ee) 41 percent to 37 percent, and former ambassador Tom Foley 43 percent to 35 percent. 

Poll crosstabs are available here

Dodd is now running at plus 60% unafavorable among independents and in his old congressional district

67% of CT voters do not approve of the job Dodd is doing as chairman of the Banking Committee

He is losing the re-elect question 35% to 59%; with 40% saying they "definitely" will not vote for Dodd. The "definite will not vote" number is now higher than Dodd's re-elect percentage.

Perhaps the most devastating number in the Q poll is this one.

54% of CT voters do not think Dodd is "honest and trustworthy". Only 32% think he is.

 As CT political maven Dean Pagani said in his blog you don;t readily recover from that problem. 

This may end up not helping the overall cause, as these sorts of poll numbers may cause a "Barry Goldwater" moment in the Democrat caucus directing Dodd to stand down for a less damaged candidate.

Then again, maybe some itchy young Democrats primaries Dodd. We've had THAT in CT, now haven't we.

I think this sign was a very low MoE

Connecticut's leading pollster, Quinnipiac University, released it's latest poll today. And the temperature reading on CT's senior senator , Chris Dodd, continues to drop into hypothermia conditions

 

 

A total of 42 percent of voters say they "definitely" or "probably" will vote to reelect Sen. Dodd in 2010, while 51 percent say the "probably won't" or "definitely won't" vote for him.

By a 54 - 24 percent margin, Connecticut voters say they are not satisfied with Sen. Dodd's explanation of allegations that he received preferential mortgage treatment and 56 percent of voters say they are less likely to vote for him because of this controversy.

"Sen. Dodd is vulnerable. His approval has sunk to a new low. More voters disapprove than approve of the job he is doing for the first time in 15 years of polling," Schwartz said. "The mortgage controversy has taken a toll on his approval rating. Most voters are not satisfied with Dodd's explanation and say they are less likely to vote for him next year because of it."

 

 If anything, the polls's internals are even more horrific for Senator Dodd than the widely reported toplines

11% of CT voters will "defintively" vote to re-elect Dodd; while  32% of CT voters will "definitely" vote against Dodd.

So the "intensity" in this race is starting off 3 to 1 against the incumbent; who will need 67% of those voters who aren't committed to firing him in order to hold office.

On the question of trust, unaffiliated voters  break 39%- to 45% against Dodd being "honest and trustworthy"  By a 19% to 59% measure they aren;t satisfied with Dodd' explanation of how he got "VIP" treatment from Countrywide Mortgage.

Perhaps most ominously for Dodd, he is losing the re-elect question in CT's three rural eastern counties . where he once represented in Congress and where his possible opponent (Fmr. Congressman Rob Simmons) is from.  Even people living near Dodd Stadium are sick of Chris Dodd.

Now how bad are these numbers? Well, I'm thinking Chris Dodd is in Rick Santorum sorta trouble; especially since in July 2005 Quinnipiac had Santorum with positive job approval. a and a plurality edge on the re-elect question. 

As we know, Santorum went down by something like 18 points in a purple state. CT is bluer than PA is red, and the CT GOP is unlikely to find as strong a votegetter as Casey; but I challenge Nate Silver to explain why Chris Dodd isn't high on 538.com's list of vulnerable 2010 senate seats. 

The problem for Dodd is he's already done his damage control on Countrywide and suffered more damage.  Sure he promises to fight back, but let's "fisk" this statement, why don;t we. 

 When the time comes, Sen. Dodd will be ready with a vigorous, well-funded (by special interests) re-election campaign," said Dodd's spokesman, Bryan DeAngelis. "Now is the time for leadership and that is why Sen. Dodd is focused on helping Connecticut families get out of this economic crisis and hardship."

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hcu-qpoll-0210,0,4411573.story

The Hartford Business Journal's Dean Pagani has suggested Democratic senior statesmen will intercede to get Dodd to go quietly into the night off to his Connemara cottage, so they can run the more popular Attorney General Dick Blumenthal or perhaps chomping at the bit Congressman Chris Murphy. But I think someone who thinks his family owns this senate seat is going to go down swinging irregardless of whether he hurts his party; he did waste over a year of his life on a risable race for President.   

So, folks, if you thought 2006 was a fun senate election in CT, well we have an encore!!!...and one that a registered Republican can win!

I think Dodd is going to go down along with the economic disaster he helped create. Shouldn;t mess with karma, I say 

Nearly conservative I've read says that this election, three weeks away, is over.

I'm pretty surprised considering that I'm usually the more pessimistic one. Just last month we thought this election was in the bag and now we're saying its over? The poll numbers, while bad, generally aren't in double-digit territory. What has happened is that a very small and impressionable portion of the population (say 10%) has changed their mind, not because of anything Obama or McCain have done but rather because the economic death spiral causes them to want Democrats the same a way a terrorist attack would make them want Republicans. If some calm is restored then people will be able to think more rationally about the situation.

Everybody is also trashing the McCain campaign as no better than Bush in 1992 or Dole in 1996, the last two Republican defeats. But at this time in 1992 Bush was down 13 points while he only lost by 5.5. Dole was down twelve to twenty-two points in the same time period in 1996 (with the Gallup tracking poll showing a 16 point gap on election day). He lost by 8.5. The point is that even those awful campaigns managed to dig into sizable Democrat leads under unfavorable circumstances. I think it's safe to say that this election has been closer than the last two in terms of polling. Throw the Bradley effect in there and the race may not be as lopsided as it seems.

We shouldn't say its over until its over.

Despite the polls trending toward Obama as of late, he is still only three points ahead in the latest Rasmussen poll, and tied with McCain in the latest Gallup poll. By all accounts, the race is still neck and neck, but are the polls really hiding a lead for McCain?

There are two reasons to believe that McCain may actually be about 2 to 4 points ahead of Obama at this point in the race. One reason has been talked about quite a bit in this race, but the other, and arguably just as important reason, has been almost completely ignored. 

The first reason is the Bradley Effect. The Bradley Effect states that black politicians(and indeed other minority candidates) tend to do better in the polls than they do on election day. Many pollsters and pundits are saying that there is no Bradley Effect in play, because they did not see it in the primaries. 

This is not a good measure of the Bradley Effect for the general election. The reason there was no Bradley Effect in the primary, is because most of the voters that would have contributed to the Bradley Effect, never said they would vote for Obama. They said they would, and did, vote for Hillary Clinton. She acted as a lighting rod, eliminating almost completely any evidence of a Bradley Effect. 

Though the Bradley Effect will probably be at least a small factor, it should not sway the race any more than about 2 points. At this point in the race, a Bradley Effect would put McCain and Obama in a dead tie.

The second and more significant reason is the youth vote. This is because youth voters are notoriously unreliable on election day. This is not for lack of support of their candidate, it is that they do not show up to the polls on election day. 

This youth problem is a much bigger problem than the Bradley Effect. The "youth effect" could have up to a 3 to 5 point effect on the race in McCain's favor. Though not many pollsters are discussing this, it is a very real factor, and one the Obama campaign is discussing. 

At this point in the race, with these effects factored in, there is reason to believe McCain could be ahead as much as 3 points. At the very least, these effects have McCain and Obama tied at this point.

Will the Bradley Effect and the youth vote come into play and hurt Obama on election day? Only 40 more days until we know for sure.

There's no question that the polling average first pioneered by RealClearPolitics has demonstrably improved media reporting on polls. Media outlets have been forced to walk back on the inherent fraud of reporting on their poll as the most important and/or only recent poll. Outliers are no longer reported on as Holy Writ. The result is a much more stable and accurate picture of the race.

Still, there's still something wanting about the overall state of polling today. Despite the tremendous technological advantages allowing us to reach more respondents cheaper either through robocalling or the Internet, we still don't have a real-time picture of the election.

The current RCP average includes interviews taken from September 9th, 10 days ago. Is this really a reflection of where the race is today? Do we really have to wait until the Tuesday after a convention to assess what the bounce was?

The Daily Kos/Research 2000 tracking poll points the way in some respects. They are releasing results from individual nights. And these results are well within the 5.1% margin of error, and don't evince much of the jumpiness pollsters warn us about in one night samples. The last three nights were Obama +5, Obama +8, and Obama +8. I may think the poll overall is 2-3 points too pro-Democratic, but even skewed polls usually get the trendline right.

What if all pollsters would release similar one-night figures and we were able to aggregate these into an RCP or Pollster-style average? Wouldn't that eliminate a lot of the uncertainty of low sample sizes in the same way that RCP eliminated the uncertainty of CNN hawking its relatively high MOE poll while NBC/WSJ did the same?

This at least has the advantage of being an apples to apples comparison. The current polling averages encompass polls taken on different dates, often not overlapping.

We'd still have rolling samples, but as a political operative, I want to see the immediate impact of the financial crisis on the polls. Pollsters have told us that these one-night results are supposedly invalid, because of 1) low sample sizes, and 2) swings caused by one day news stories.

Averaging solves the first part, and -- excuse me -- aren't the one-day swings relevant in that they are possibly leading indicators of lasting shifts? If the media's time horizon for covering the campaign is a single news cycle, isn't it only fair that we measure the campaign that way too? And aside from AB/EV, Election Day is a single day event -- not a three-day composite.

Second, I'd like to see an RCP-style average for demographic groups. Though I don't deny there has probably been an Obama shift the last few days, have white women really swung eleven points in a week? I don't think we can make that contention without seeing the RCP/Pollster average for white women. Because pollsters can't hawk their topline data as a unique product anymore, they focus on the closely guarded crosstabs, which are even less accurate than a single poll. An RCP style average for key groups would give us a real (and fascinating) picture of how different groups have really shifted over time.