Tag: polling
SSP Daily Digest: 4/22 (Morning Edition)
Should Progressive Democrats identify as “Socialists”?
The last item on 4/6 Afternoon Daily Digest about the relative popularity of “socialism” and Teabaggers got me thinking. If the GOP (or at least right-wing activists and opinion makers) is willing and eager to embrace the tea-party movement, why is it that Democrats continue to treat “socialism” as toxic? Certainly, its a losing proposition nationally (no Democratic candidate for president should EVER call themselves ‘socialist’). In some parts of the country though, my hunch is that progressives/liberals/Democrats/the left ought to revisit their assumption that ‘socialism’ is to American politics as oil is to water.
The question I’m exploring here is:
Where might ‘socialism’ have either 50+ favorablity, or at least net postitive favorability?
The Gallop poll referenced here (http://www.gallup.com/poll/125645/socialism-viewed-positively-americans.aspx) was taken in January 2010. It found socialism at 36-58 overall, but at 53-41 among Democrats, and and 61-34 among liberals. Using Gallop’s own data on party affiliation and ideology by state (http://www.gallup.com/poll/125066/State-States.aspx), we can extrapolate views of socialism state by state:
DC (adjusted by ideology): 41/48
DC (adjusted by party affiliation): 47/47
MA (by ideology): 38/53
MA (by party): 40/54
VT-ideology: 39/53
VT-party: 39/54
NY-ideology: 37/53
NY-party: 39/55
OR-ideology: 37/54
OR-party: 37/56
CT-ideology: 37/54
CT-party: 38/55
RI-ideology: 37/54
RI-party: 40/53
HI-ideology: 38/52
HI-party: 39/54
MD-ideology: 37/54
MD-party: 39/54
I’ll stop here. The states (and district) that I tested here are a few of the most left-leaning out there, yet only in DC under one method did I find socialism not to be a net negative, and only in DC did I not find it to be over 50% unfavorable. So unfortunately, the numbers don’t support my hypothesis. A few concluding thoughts on this:
– My calculations assume that opinions of socialism are uniform nationwide among parties and ideological groups. This may not necessarily be true, but without state-by-state data on this question, I think this was the best I could do.
– My guess is that views of socialism correlate more strongly to ideology than to party affiliation. In practice though, the numbers are similar regardless of which method you use.
– The party and ideology data are from 2009. I think this may be a good thing though, since 2009 was in between a good year for Democrats and a bad one, so 2009 may be the year with data that best reflects the “starting point.”
– A major problem that socialism has is that, in political terms, it has been defined by its opponents. No one (except perhaps for Bernie Sanders) in mainstream American political discourse ever sticks up for socialism. On the other hand, Republicans bash it constantly. Additionally, many Americans probably associate it with communism and the Eastern Bloc. Perhaps if the left made an investment in trying to “sell” socialism to the public, these numbers would improve.
– A fundamental assumption that I have made, that a socialist would only be electable if socialism has a net positive favorability rating, is probably wrong on its face. Vermont, for example, elected a Socialist Senator despite socialism having a net rating of minus 14 or 15 there. Many self described Liberals hold statewide office in America, despite liberals being only 20-30% of the electorate in any given state, and nationally.
– Related to the point above, Socialism actually seems to be viewed favorably by a larger percentage of the electorate than the percentage identifying themselves as Liberal. This holds true both nationally and in every state I tested.
– In the long run, running away from labels isn’t a viable strategy. The American Left has been running away from the word “Liberal” ever since the 80s. People have thought its cute to call themselves “Progressives” instead, and Glenn Beck’s recent paranoid tirades against Progressivism are a consequence of that. What’s the next word we’re all going to flee to now that conservatives are saying bad things about “Progressivism”?
– I really don’t like the term “Liberal”. Not because it doesn’t poll well, but because its actually really inaccurate. At least on economic policy, Conservatives are far more “liberal” than “Liberals” are. “Progressive” is probably better, because it implies a belief in using government as an instrument of social progress, but again, I don’t like the way that term is used by people who are afraid being called “Liberal”.
– I consider myself a Socialist, or more specifically, a Social Democrat. This doesn’t mean I believe in Marx, revolution, the abolishment of capitalism, or anything else crazy like that. It means I believe in government as a means to establish a better, fairer society. I believe Big Government is not inherently good or bad, its what you make of it. I believe the free market is generally good, but never perfect, and that the job of Government is to fill the gaps of capitalism that too many people would otherwise fall through. My views are most in line with the Canadian NDP, or the UK Labour Party (pre-Blair and “New Labour”). I support single-payer health insurance, strong bank regulation, and cap-and-trade, but I believe in compromise. I’m a proud Democrat, I don’t do anything stupid like voting Green, I support Obama, and think “liberal No” votes are counterproductive. Were I in Congress, I would have proudly voted yes on the health care bill. I don’t think I have radical views (by international standards I’m center-left), yet the word that describes them best is politically taboo in America.
– As a “bonus”, I ran the numbers two more times, first on New York according to the 2008 exit polls, which I thought have somewhat better results (41-53 by ideology, 38-54 by party). Secondly, I tried my hometown of New York City, using numbers from this (http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=c4719d83-23d9-4e1d-95a6-975f4e2562e4) poll from last year’s mayoral election. Here I found 37/46 by ideology, and 43/50 by party. I think its worth noting that opposition to socialism is at or under 50% here.
Final Conclusion: Socialism probably doesn’t poll as well as I would have liked to see. Nonetheless, it seems to outperform Liberalism, and the stigma attached to it thus seems highly disproportionate. A candidate would almost certainly prefer to call himself a Liberal than a Socialist, yet this suggest that the “S” word is probably less of a liability than the “L” word. Certainly, a “Socialist” candidate should not have a hard time winning a Democratic Primary in areas where the Democratic nomination is tantamount to election.
Loading ...SSP Daily Digest: 4/1 (Afternoon Edition)
SSP Daily Digest: 3/12 (Morning Edition)
Rasmussen is dominating the narratives through his frenetic polling.
So I’ve gotten the feeling that our prospects in the Senate have been sinking recently, even more so than during the last quarter of 2009. So I asked myself, “Why do I have that feeling?” And then I went back and looked. The answer in more cases than not is Scott Rasmussen.
I’m not saying Rasmussen is a bad pollster. In fact, he may just be ahead of the curve in terms of predicting what may be a dismal Democratic turnout in 2010. But he is an incredibly frequent pollster, and his polls have dominated the narratives in many of these races as a result of their sheer frequency.
Here are the races rated by Cook as Lean Retention or better for the challenger:
(1) ND-OPEN – Hoeven’s dominance here has been tracked by several pollsters. Not a case in point.
(2) DE-OPEN – The proposition that Castle v. Coons is a washout is based on a single Rasmussen poll taken January 25 showing a 56-27 Castle lead. There is no other recent polling.
(3) AR-Lincoln – Ras is at least corroborated by PPP in showing Lincoln’s sorry ass getting blown out.
(4) NV-Reid – Much like Arkansas, PPP corroborates Rasmussen’s solid R leads.
(5) CO-Bennet – All of the gloom and doom in this race comes from two recent Rasmussen polls showing double-digit leads for Norton over Bennet. Research 2000 actually showed a small lead for Bennet only a month ago.
(6) PA-Specter – Again, the gloom and doom here comes from two recent Rasmussen polls showing 9-point leads for Toomey over Specter. Quinnipiac showed an even race on December 8.
(7) IL-OPEN – Once again, the gloom and doom here comes from a single Rasmussen poll showing Kirk up 6, which was directly contradicted by a PPP poll just a week prior showing Giannoulias up 8.
(8) MO-OPEN – Yet again, more gloom and doom exclusively from Rasmussen, showing Blunt up 7 and 6. Every non-Rasmussen poll has Carnahan ahead.
(9) OH-OPEN – Again, the narrative that Portman is winning comes from Rasmussen, although Quinnipiac had a 3-point Portman lead back in November.
(10) NH-OPEN – Several polls have corroborated Rasmussen’s high single digit lead for Ayotte over Hodes, so this is not a case in point.
(11) KY-OPEN – Like New Hampshire, Rasmussen’s polling showing high single single digit leads for Republicans is corroborated by other pollsters here.
(12) IN-Bayh – The only reason that this race is viewed as competitive as far as I can see is a Rasmussen poll that showed Mike Pence up on Bayh and John Hostettler within 3. Today, Research 2000 showed Bayh up 16 on Hostettler and 20 on Indiana-hating Dan Coats. Cook has now moved this from Safe D to Lean D, presumably based largely on Rasmussen.
(13) CA-Boxer – Kind of like Indiana. The main reason this race is viewed as competitive is Rasmussen’s polling, starting in July when Ras showed a 4-point race with Fiorina while others showed 15 to 20 point leads. In fairness to Ras, a recent PPIC poll showed Tom Campbell within 4, giving some corroboration for Ras’s take. But nobody else has had Fiorina closer than 8. Cook has had this at Lean D for some time, and I suspect that was partly based on the July Rasmussen poll.
(14) CT-OPEN – Ras shows a pretty solid Blumenthal blowout, although less so than other pollsters. Not a case in point.
I am using Wikipedia to track polling, and may be missing some polls. Please correct me if I am mischaracterizing anything.
Of these 14 races, I would say that Rasmussen has had a stranglehold on the recent gloom and doom narratives in 7: DE, CO, PA, IL, MO, OH, and IN. Put another way, I have been led to the subconscious belief that we are going to lose the first 6, and be in for a dogfight in IN, strictly based on Rasmussen polling. I would also put CA in pretty close to the same category as IN, although PPIC did recently confirm a close race with Campbell at least.
I do not think this is an accident. I do not remember this kind of frenetic pace from Rasmussen before Obama took office. SSP recently suggested Rasmussen has gotten so prolific that he could be called “spammy.” My gut tells me Ras is getting as many polls out there as he can precisely so that he can dominate the narratives with his polls and their aggressive turnout model. Combine this with his right wing framing on issue polling, his inexplicable use of an aggressive likely voter screen for presidential approval three years before the election, his haste to poll Republican “dream” candidates, and his frequent yucking it up with conservative talking heads, and you’ve got yourself a Republican cheerleader trying to influence elections rather than study them. Again, his polls may be right. But his transparent efforts to drive the narrative seem very partisan to me.
Is phone polling doomed by 2012?
Catching up on reading and emails from the past three weeks, I came across a link to an interesting article by Mystery Pollster:
Is Polling As We Know It Doomed?
excerpt:
… To conclude his (Jay Leve, editor and founder of SurveyUSA) talk, Leve summed up the problem. All phone polling, he said, depends on a set of assumptions:
You’re at home; you have a [home] phone; your phone has a hard-coded area code and exchange which means I know where you are; … you’re waiting for your phone to ring; when it rings you’ll answer it; it’s OK for me to interrupt you; you’re happy to talk to me; whatever you’re doing is less important than talking to me; and I won’t take no for an answer — I’m going to keep calling back until you talk to me.
The current reality, he said, is often much different:
In fact, you don’t have a home phone; your number can ring anywhere in the world; you’re not waiting for your phone to ring; nobody calls you on the phone anyway they text you or IM you; when your phone rings you don’t answer it — your time is precious, you have competing interests, you resent calls from strangers, you’re on one or more do-not-call lists, and 20 minutes [the length of many pollsters’ interviews] is an eternity.
All of this brought Leve to a somewhat stunning bottom line: “If you look at where we are here in 2009,” for phone polling, he said, “it’s over… this is the end. Something else has got to come along.”
Also mentioned is the amazing (to me anyway) factoid that OVER 40% of 18 to 24 year olds have no landline telephone service, a near tripling in four years.
(And anecdotally, at the other end of the spectrum, an elderly (80+ years) relative of mine is preparing to port her phone number over to cell phone, cancel the landline and go cell only (to cut costs). So this is not merely a youth trend.)
Of course, they weight the samples as best they can, but at some point the errors introduced have got to become too significant.
So after 2012, what will politians and campaign managers do with increasingly unreliable polling?
And what will us political junkies do? Will every single diary quoting a polling result get a comment to the effect that the numbers are unreliable garbage?
We sure live in interesting times.
Loading ...FL-13: Buchanan Ahead by 16 in SUSA Poll
SurveyUSA (9/30-10/1, likely voters, no trendlines):
Christine Jennings (D): 33
Vern Buchanan (R-inc): 49
Jan Schneider (I): 9
Don Baldauf (I): 3
Undecided: 6
(MoE: ±4.1%)
Polling has been all over the place in FL-13 just in the past month. First good old Vern released an internal that had him up 18. Then Jennings responded with her own showing her back just four. Research 2000 neatly split the difference, calling it a twelve-point race. Neither the R2K nor Jennings polls, though, included Democrat-turned-crybaby Jan Schneider, a three-time loser who seems to be digging her loser’s share directly out of Jennings’s hide.
Vern also poaches Dems directly. He scores a strong 76-11 among members of his own party, while Jennings takes just 62-19 from Dems. And he cleans up with indies, 43-25. Jennings has an extremely tough row to hoe in this district.
The one thing that stands out is at this point old hat for SUSA: voters 18 to 34 are Vern’s best demographic, favoring him by a 57-31 split. I know the preference for Republicans among young voters in SUSA polls has struck SSPers of all stripes as odd if not completely off-base. But perhaps SUSA sees something the rest of us haven’t.
A little history lesson may be in order here. I’ve been reading Rick Perlstein’s utterly awesome Nixonland, which I can’t recommend highly enough. He recounts that when the franchise was extended to 18-to-21-year-olds before the 1972 election, Democrats were convinced that this would be of huge benefit to them. After all, young people had been on the vanguard of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and surely despised Tricky Dick. Yet Nixon managed to split the youth vote en route to a massive landslide.
Now obviously, the differences between 2008 and 1972 are too many to count, not least that many Democrats back then completely misunderstood Nixon’s appeal. But either SUSA has made a huge mistake with its likely voter screen, or they’ve correctly identified trends among younger voters this year that most other pollsters have missed. We’ll see.
The New Reality of Religious Voters
One of the most widely known axioms in modern politics is the belief in the “God Gap” which says, essentially, that the higher the frequency of church attendance, the higher the likelihood a person will vote Republican. Essentially it has declared Republicans as the party of the faithful and Democrats as the secular or athiest party.
Democrats have tried in recent years to reach out to religious voters in far more concrete ways, from forming a Faith in Action office in the DNC, to specialty political consulting firms forming to help Democrats do faith outreach. Candidates like Heath Shuler in North Carolina and Ted Strickland in Ohio were undeniably helped by this type of religious outreach and GOTV.
A recent study by the Henry Institute at Calvin College now reveals how the 2008 political religious map looks, and has some surprising and interesting findings about both religious voters partisanship and their evolving views on social issues. What’s also nice is how this study breaks voters down (unlike exit polls) by not just religious denomination but also orthodoxy. This is the type of study Democratic strategist should be looking at as they prepare their outreach.
The first point to take is that Evangelical partisanship has not changed in the last four years (still a 29% GOP advantage) and, though stagnating, has widened significantly since 1992.
This group, which represents a little more than a quarter of the electorate favored the Republican Party over the Democratic Party 48 percent to 32 percent in 1992, but now leans Republican 54 percent to 25 percent.
Republican’s now have this quarter-sized voting bloc firmly wrapped up, and the Democrats have thus far proved ineffective in their outreach. (Though it is perhaps a small victory that the gap has not widened.)
Better news: Mainline Protestants, about 20% of the electorate, have made a massive swing to the left. Alienated by the extremism of the Religious Right, Mainlines are for the first time in modern history, siding with the Democrats.
Historically, Mainline Protestants have been the mainstay of the Republican coalition. Even as late as 1992, Mainline Protestants were heavily Republican in their partisan identifications (50 percent Republican to 32 percent Democratic). But, in 2008, Mainline Protestants are for the first time since at least the beginning of the New Deal more Democratic than Republican in their partisan identifications (46 percent to 37 percent, respectively).
Roman Catholics, again about a quarter of the electorate are again the ultimate swing vote. Catholics have sided with the popular vote winner in every presidential election since Truman.
In 2008, a plurality of non-Hispanic Catholics remain Democratic in their partisan identifications-but only barely so. As a result, non-Hispanic Roman Catholics (whose total numbers are similar to that of Mainline Protestants) continue to remain the largest religious tradition most evenly divided in their partisan inclinations and most likely to be “up for grabs” in the 2008 presidential election (38 percent Republican; 41 percent Democratic).
Now there is a growing theory that there really is no Catholic vote. The argument goes that Catholics tend to vote along socio-economic lines (or ethnic lines) but their vote is rarely directly tied to their Catholicism. It is important to note here though that those self-identifying as traditional Catholics due side with Republicans.
On social issues there is again mixed news for the Dems. Since 2004, the support for environmental regulation has dropped. This is surprising with the recent “Creation-Care” theology of leaders like Rev. Richard Cizik and Joel Hunter. Younger evangelicals too have been thought to have been better on the environment. I tend to agree with Mark Silk who said,
The explanation has to do, I think, with the way the question is asked: “Strict rules to protect the environment are necessary even if they cost jobs or result in higher prices.” In other words, less support for environmental regulation may simply reflect higher economic anxieties…and not all groups show this tendency. Jews, Blacks, and Latinos all have become more environmentalist, by modest amounts, and the unaffiliated, by a hefty amount. Atheists and Agnostics are not the most pro-environment group in the country, at 81 percent. Environmentalism is their religion.
Allowing a woman to solely decide on abortion is supported by 53 percent of the entire religious sample, as opposed to 40 percent against. And by a margin of 47 percent to 41 percent, respondents do not agree that gays and lesbians should be permitted to marry legally. Surprisingly for some, Catholics support abortion rights 51-43, and are almost evenly split on gay marriage, 43 percent against and 45 percent for. It is this growing demographic change on gay marriage that should certainly frighten social conservatives (although studies show that young people are more pro-life than their parents.
Finally only one group now fully supports the US Occupation of Iraq: evangelicals, 57 percent to 35 percent. Among them, the traditionalists support our having gone to war 64-27, while centrist and modernist evangelicals are barely in favor. All other groups are opposed. One could argue that the question of Iraq is now a religious question, with only the most conservative Christians supporting it. John McCain will win the far religious right vote with his saber-rattling with Iran and Iraq, however he risks losing the moderate Evangelical vote if he overplays his hand. Moderate evangelicals are in play for Obama in this election.