Roper Center Newsletter
Parsing The Polls |
||
|
|
|
| Health Care Reform News Tops Public Interest (Pew People & the Press) Posted: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:55:00 EST Abortion Plays Small Role in Health Reform Opposition (Pew People & the Press) Posted: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:55:11 EST Supply Problems and Safety Concerns Continue to Hamper Swine Flu Program (ABC News: The Polling Unit) Nearly half of parents don't intend to have their children vaccinated against the swine flu virus. 
Modest Rise in Concern About Islamic Extremism (Pew People & the Press) Posted: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:45:58 EST Support for Afghanistan War Slips to a New Low (ABC News: The Polling Unit) Support for the war in Afghanistan has ebbed to a new low in ABC News/Washington Post polls.
Views on the Terror Trials (ABC News: The Numbers) Americans divide evenly on whether to try 9/11 suspects in U.S. civilian courts or military tribunals, a split like so many driven chiefly by partisan and ideological differences. Our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll asks whether suspects accused...
9/11 suspects and trial venue: another even-up proposition (Washington Post: Behind the Numbers) Like much else in politics today, Friday's decision to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and several co-conspirators on trial in federal court in New York is apt to satisfy half of Americans, and displease the other half. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 47 percent say suspects accused of involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks should be tried in the U.S. federal court system, while as many, 48 percent, say they prefer military tribunals set up for that purpose. .poll454 { width: 454px; padding: 10px 0; margin: 10px 0; border-top: 1px dotted #CCC; border-bottom: 1px dotted #CCC; } .poll454 h3 { font: bold 13px/17px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 10px 0; } .poll454 blockquote { font: 13px/17px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } .poll454 p.credit { font: 11px/14px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #666; margin: 0; } Q. Would you rather have suspects accused of Sarah Palin by the numbers (Washington Post: Behind the Numbers) The public's take on Sarah Palin remains deeply split along partisan and gender lines, according to the new Washington Post-ABC News poll, and among women, the gap between Democrats and Republicans is even wider. Crosstabs on these questions below. Q. Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Sarah Palin? ---Favorable-- -Unfavorable-- NET Strongly NET Strongly All 43 20 52 34 Democrat 21 9 77 57 Independent 45 18 47 32 Republican 76 42 20 6 Men 48 20 46 29 Women 39 20 57 39 Among women: White 45 23 51 37 White/Suburb 50 26 46 33 Democrat 17 8 81 62 Independent 41 16 52 36 Republican 78 49 20 6 Q. If Palin runs for president in 2012, would you definitely vote for her, would you consider voting for her, or would you definitely not vote for her? Definitely Would Definitely would consider would not All Sarah Palin: Rogue for President? (ABC News: The Numbers) The buildup to her new book hasnt eased Sarah Palins political challenges: Just over half of Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll have an unfavorable opinion of her overall, as many say they wouldnt consider supporting her for...
Sarah Palin: new chapter, same challenges (Washington Post: Behind the Numbers) If Sarah Palin's book tour is an opening salvo in a run for the presidency in 2012, she faces a steep uphill climb: a majority of Americans in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll say they would "definitely not vote for her." Most - 60 percent - in the new poll say the former Alaska governor is not qualified to serve as president, and her favorability rating remains stuck well below what it was when she first emerged on the national scene at last year's Republican convention. But she continues to have strident supporters, particularly among the Republican base, lifting her political influence. Overall, 52 percent of those polled say they see Palin in unfavorable terms, but among Republicans, her positive rating soars to 76 percent. Nearly two-thirds of all white evangelical Protestants hold favorable views of her. Put together, a majority of Americans have "strongly" positive or negative views |
US: Health Care, Fort Hood (Fox 11/17-18) (Pollster.com) Posted: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:43:29 -0500 Omero: Remember the Women (in the HC debate) (Pollster.com) Posted: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:34:58 -0500 CA: 2010 Sen (Rasmussen 11/17) (Pollster.com) Posted: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:03:15 -0500 US: 2012 Pres (PPP 11/13-15) (Pollster.com) Posted: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:26:18 -0500 NY: 2010 Gov (Marist 11/12-17) (Pollster.com) Posted: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:20:47 -0500 
Sarkozy’s Popularity Rating Falls to 36 Percent, Ifop Poll Says (Bloomberg) Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s approval rating fell in November close to the lowest since his 2007 election, an Ifop poll for French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche showed. Posted: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:39:00 GMT Poll reveals sexual ignorance (Straits Times) LONDON - MORE than one in 10 British people don't realise that a woman can still get pregnant if she has sex standing up, according to a poll on Friday. Nearly one in five - 19 per cent - are also unaware that a woman can get pregnant during her period, or if the man withdraws before ejaculation, according to the government-commissioned survey. Posted: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:12:25 GMT Canadians seem pleased with additions to immigrants' handbook: poll (Brandon Sun) OTTAWA - A new poll suggests people are generally pleased with a new immigration handbook that emphasizes Canadian military and political history. The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggests a majority of people feel that immigrants have a poor, or very poor understanding of Canadian history. Posted: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:28:31 GMT Poll: More blame Democrats for recession (CNN Money) Nearly two years into the recession, opinion about which political party is responsible for the severe economic downturn is shifting, according to a new national poll. Posted: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:29:32 GMT Sexual Ignorance Revealed By British Poll (redOrbit) According to poll results released on Friday, 11 percent of British people still believe that sex standing up is an effective contraceptive method. Posted: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:13:32 GMT |
|
I Read Through 160,000,000 Bytes of Hacked Files And All I Got Was This Lousy E-Mail It's the global warming scandal of the century, says Michelle Malkin! The exposure of the warmist conspiracy, says Andrew Bolt! The final nail in the coffin of anthropogenic global warming, bleats James Delingpole! A stunning tour de force -- four stars, says Leonard Maltin! OK, so that last quote is made up. But the others aren't. What is it these conservatives are so excited about? Apparently, the networks of University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit were hacked into last night. Approximately 160 megabytes of files, containing hundreds or thousands of e-mails and documents were leaked as a result of the security breach, reports The Guardian. The conservatives are mainly zeroing in on one particular e-mail from the center's director, Phil Jones, dated from November 16th, 1999, which reads as follows: From: Phil JonesThere you have it! The smoking gun! Irrefutable proof of the Anthropogenic Global Warming Super-Duper Major-Mega International Socialist Conspiracy! If you see Al Gore parking his Ford Fusion hybrid near any major bridges, make sure to call the police! Actually, what you have is a scientist, Dr. Jones, talking candidly about sexing up a graph to make his conclusions more persuasive. This is not a good thing thing to do -- I'd go so far as to call it unethical -- and Jones deserves some of the loss of face that he will suffer. Unfortunately, this is the sort of thing that happens all the time in both academia and the private sector -- have you ever looked at the graphs in the annual report of a company which had a bad year? And it seems to happen all too often on both sides of the global warming debate (I'd include some of the graphics from An Inconvenient Truth in this category, FWIW.) But let's be clear: Jones is talking to his colleagues about making a prettier picture out of his data, and not about manipulating the data itself. Again, I'm not trying to excuse what he did -- we make a lot of charts here and 538 and make every effort to ensure that they fairly and accurately reflect the underlying data (in addition to being aesthetically appealing.) I wish everybody would abide by that standard. Still: I don't know how you get from some scientist having sexed up a graph in East Anglia ten years ago to The Final Nail In The Coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Anyone who comes to that connection has more screws loose than the Space Shuttle Challenger. And yet that's literally what some of these bloggers are saying! Incidentally, 2009 is shaping up to be the 5th warmist year on record, according to the conspiracists at NASA.   It's [Still] The Economy, Dumbass All right -- this is my favorite graph in quite some time. Let's show the picture first and ask questions later.  What we have is a comparison of Barack Obama's approval ratings on the economy to his approval ratings overall. It includes all polls in the Pollster.com database that asked about both approval of Obama on the economy and his overall job performance -- a total of 109 polls dating back to the start of his term. I've then drawn in some LOESS curves to illustrate the trend. The two lines track each other uncannily well. From the very start of Obama's term, there's been about a 5-6 point gap between approval of his performance on the economy and his performance overall, with the latter figure consistently being somewhat higher. Although Obama's approval has declined in both departments (particularly during period between about April 1 and August 1; it may not be declining any further now), the magnitude of the gap has been exceptionally steady over time. The economy, I suppose, is sort of boring to talk about: it's a slow-moving sort of thing, and one over which the President has only a certain modicum of control. And so you'll have pundits attributing Obama's slide to all various and sundry sorts of things -- Health Care! Henry Louis Gates! Torture Trials! -- when really it's just been very much about the number of people who have come to blame Obama about the economy has tended to accelerate faster than perceptions of the economy itself. Let's now add a third variable, which is Obama's approval on health care. We'll look only at those polls that asked about health care in addition to the economy and job performance, in order to create a truly apples-to-apples comparison:  For the most part, the health care numbers are following the same trend, although you can perceive a bit of a secular drop during August, the Month of a Million Town Halls (followed by partial recovery in September, after Obama's address to a joint session of Congress). Although this is not easily provable -- and certainly not proven by this data -- I suspect that much of the anxiety over health care reform also stems from anxiety about the economy, in ways that are both general and specific. Indeed, the most troubling problem for the Democrats may be that government interventions into the economy -- meaning the bailout and the stimulus -- are increasingly perceived as having failed, which in turn increases skepticism about government intervention overall, in health care and other areas. I'm just not sure where this is headed: perhaps when the jobs picture recovers, so too will perception of these other programs, which will rob Republicans of much of their ammunition (although since employment is unlikely to recover significantly before 2010, they'll have plenty of fun in the shooting gallery in the meantime). But perhaps instead, the damage will be medium or even long-term: if the economy takes too long to recover, it may be perceived as being in spite of, not because of, programs like the stimulus. If that's the case, the 2010s could be a lost decade for liberalism. To channel my Inner Krugman: it's a political imperative for the Democrats of the highest order to get some sort of jobs bill to Obama's desk -- the sooner and the bigger the better. Suppose you could create jobs at a price of about $40,000 per, which is higher than the figure suggested by empirical research on highly targeted jobs programs. A $200 billion bill would then create 5 million new jobs, which would reduce unemployment by about 3.3 percent (e.g. from 10.2 percent to 6.9 percent). It's not that easy, I'm sure. But the Republicans -- who have been clamoring for such a bill for months -- are liable to find themselves on the wrong side of the politics of the issue. And even if the jobs bill isn't especially efficient at reducing unemployment on its own, it would have a bit of a wind at its back between the existing stimulus efforts and the organic recovery in the economy. Might it even be worth tabling health care to get the jobs bill passed? Probably not when health care is so close to the finish line, and when the House can start working on a jobs program while the Senate deliberates health care. But if it looks like health care doesn't have the votes, this would be the exit strategy for the Dems -- for Obama to intervene and say: "we need a jobs bill first." Either way, a couple million more jobs would make everything much smoother for the Democrats; the economy remains the primary way that the public evaluates their success.  |
||
© Roper Center, University of Connecticut. All Rights Reserved.