Lies, Big Lies and Polls
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air for years has done yeoman work in examing polls minutely and he does this well today in examing an ABC Washington Post poll with purports to show Obama leading Romney 51-44.
I love the Washington Post/ABC poll. It’s a great object lesson in how to manufacture news. Need a story that the incumbent President’s fortunes are looking up? Well, just adjust the sample a bit and voila, he takes a seven point lead over his presumed rival in the fall election! Besides, it gives me fodder for snarky material every few weeks.
Let’s get down to cases, shall we?
With the general-election campaign beginning to take shape, President Obama holds clear advantages over Mitt Romney on personal attributes and a number of key issues, but remains vulnerable to discontent with the pace of the economic recovery, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Obama has double-digit leads over the likely Republican presidential nominee on who would do a better job of protecting the middle class, addressing women’s issues, handling international affairs and dealing with health care.
You know where else Obama got a double-digit lead? In the polling sample. In 2008, when Democrats surged to the polls after eight years of George W. Bush, CNN’s exit polls showed a seven-point advantage for Democrats, 39/32, which mirrored Obama’s seven-point victory in the popular vote. In 2010′s midterms, CNN exit polls showed a 35/35/30 split. By contrast, the previous WaPo/ABC poll in March had a D/R/I of 31/27/36, which undersampled both parties relative to independents but left Democrats with a 4-point advantage — perhaps an arguable model for 2012 turnout. Today’s has a D/R/I of 34/23/34, adding seven points to that Democratic advantage and presenting a completely unrepresentative, absurd model for the 2012 turnout. Continue reading
October TAC GOP Presidential Poll
Rick Perry has suffered in the secular polls due to his performance in the debates, Herman Cain has gained traction, Mitt Romney has remained stable and just received an endorsement from Chris Christie who himself has officially stated he will not run for president (this time around). In addition both Sarah Palin and Thad McCotter have also announced they will not pursue the nomination, in all this, Rick Santorum has maintained a lead among TAC readers of all candidates.
Will Santorum continue his popularity among Catholics or not?
Here’s our latest poll so please vote after watching tonight’s GOP debate:
Last Call to Vote in GOP Presidential Poll for Catholics
The American Catholic (TAC) GOP Poll will be accepting votes until tonight, so if you haven’t voted, now is the time.
Thus far former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum is still leading with 23% (up 1 point since Wednesday) of the vote followed by Texas Governor Rick Perry with 17% (down 2 points since Wednesday) of the vote.
TAC Presidential GOP Poll So Far
The American Catholic (TAC) GOP Poll is still accepting votes until this Friday evening.
Thus far former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum is leading with 22% of the vote followed by Texas Governor Rick Perry with 19% of the vote.
Texas U.S. Representative Ron Paul follows with 13% of the vote with undecideds rounding the top four at 11%.
Top tier candidates Michele Bachmann is way back with 2% of the vote with Mitt Romney at 5% of the total vote.
GOP Presidential Poll for August
The American Catholic (TAC) has been running a periodic poll of the GOP presidential field. So naturally following the Iowa Straw Poll we have this months poll for our TAC readers. We have included candidates that have declared their candidacy as well as other speculative* candidates. As the primaries arrive the field of candidates should narrow down a bit.
Tim Pawlenty has dropped out, but Rick Perry has “officially” entered the race. A newcomer to our poll is Representative Thad McCotter of Michigan. Tim Pawlenty garnered 13 votes in our last TAC poll, we’ll see where Pawlenty’s supporters will go to next. Rick Santorum won the last TAC poll.
You can view the results of our last poll here.
Update: My apologies, I have added Michele Bachmann.
* For example even though Chris Christie has denied he is interested in running, he still will be in Iowa for an inexplicable reason. Until then, he will be showing in the poll until we don’t see his name on the actual roll.
WSJ Poll Alert, Should the Church Drop Celibacy?
[Update: Great job TACers! The poll has swung heavily to Catholic teaching. It is now 83.3% wanting to keep to Catholic teaching, which was 44% previously. See the updated poll below after the jump.]
The Wall Street Journal is running a poll on whether or not the Church should drop the requirement for celibacy by priests.
The results so far as of September 24, 2010 at 2:17pm US Central time:
We recommend our readers go visit the poll with fidelity to the Church.
Hat Tip: Father Zuhlsdorf.
TAC College Football Rankings: Week 2
Last week we debuted our fearless college rankings here at TAC. This week saw chaos in the middle and back as our #11, 12, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, and 24 teams all lost. Some of the chaos is surely due to this man:
The first lesson we need to learn is that if we keep ignoring the Federalist Papers, Madison will strike down our football teams. The other lesson is that it’s great to not be an ACC fan.
This week the rankings take on two new additions: our own Dave Hartline and Evangelical Catholicism’s M.J. Andrew. If you’re a Catholic blogger, and you’re interested in writing rankings, shoot me an email at michaelrdenton”at” gmail. com. Let’s see those rankings now, shall we?
Political Miscellania 6/16/10
1. As the above video indicates, Congressman Bob Etheridge (D.NC) does not realize that he is living in the age of video cell phones and Youtube. His GOP opponent, Renee Ellmers, reminds him of the current facts of political life.
2. If you are a Democrat, you know that political times are bad for you if National Public Radio runs a poll which indicates that your party is going to be creamed in November.
Democrat Stan Greenberg and Republican Glen Bolger conducted the first public battleground poll of this election cycle. They chose the 70 House districts experts regard as most likely to oust incumbents this fall. What they found was grim news for Democrats.
For this poll, Bolger and Greenberg chose the districts where incumbents are considered the most vulnerable, and, in the case of open seats, the ones most likely to switch party control in November. Sixty are currently held by Democrats — many of whom won these seats even when voters in the same district preferred Republican John McCain for president in 2008. The other 10 districts are the flip side — held by Republicans in the House, even though their voters went for Barack Obama in 2008.
These are this year’s swing seats — the political terrain where the battle for control of the House of Representatives will be won or lost. In this battleground, voters are choosing Republicans over Democrats 49 percent to 41 percent. Continue reading
Gallup: One Point Difference In Party ID
Further evidence that the Democrats are looking at an electoral disaster of epic proportions is given by a Gallup poll on party ID released this week. The polls show Democrats at 46% and the Republicans at 45% in party ID.
The advantage in public support the Democratic Party built up during the latter part of the Bush administration and the early part of the Obama administration has all but disappeared. During the first quarter of 2010, 46% of Americans identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, while 45% identified as or leaned Republican.
The latest results, based on aggregated data from Gallup polls conducted from January to March of this year, show the closest party division since the first quarter of 2005, when the parties were tied at 46%. Democrats enjoyed double-digit advantages in party support in 11 of 12 quarters from the second quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2009.
By the end of last year, the Democratic advantage had shrunk to five points (47% to 42%), and it narrowed further in the most recent quarter.
The six-point rise in Republican support since the first quarter of 2009 is due entirely to a growing proportion of independents who lean to the Republican Party, rather than an increase in the percentage of Americans who identify as Republicans outright. (Gallup measures party identification by first asking Americans whether they identify as Republicans, Democrats, or independents. Those who are independent or express no party preference are then asked whether they lean more toward the Democratic or the Republican Party.)
In fact, the 28% of Americans who initially identify as Republicans today is identical to the figure Gallup measured in early 2009, when the Democrats still had a double-digit advantage in support. Since then, there has been a three-point reduction in the proportion of Democratic identifiers, and a three-point decline in the percentage of Democratic-leaning independents. Continue reading
ObamaCare Bounce? What ObamaCare Bounce?
Perhaps a sign of public discontent with the passage of ObamaCare, the Republicans now lead by four points, 48-44, on the Gallup Generic Congressional ballot among registered voters. It is rare for Republicans to take the lead in this poll as Gallup notes:
The trend based on registered voters shows how rare it is for the Republicans to lead on this “generic ballot” measure among all registered voters, as they do today. Other recent exceptions were recorded in 1994 — when Republicans wrested majority control from the Democrats for the first time in 40 years — and 2002, when the GOP achieved seat gains, a rarity for the president’s party in midterm elections.
On the other hand, the Democrats are not performing in the poll as they have in years when they have won Congress:
In midterm years when Democrats prevailed at the polls (such as 2006, 1990, and 1986), their net support among registered voters typically extended into double digits at several points during the year — something that has yet to happen in 2010.
Gallup notes the enthusiasm gap that currently exists between the parties:
Gallup will not begin identifying likely voters for the 2010 midterms until later in the year. However, at this early stage, Republicans show much greater enthusiasm than Democrats about voting in the elections.
In other poll news, the Republicans retain a nine point lead, 45-36, over the Democrats on the Rasmussen Generic Congressional ballot of likely voters. Rasmussen also reports that in his latest poll on repeal of ObamaCare, 58% of voters support repeal. Nate Silver at 538, a site which leans left politically, states the following in regard to current generic ballots:
These sorts of questions have been the subject of many, many academic studies, almost all of which involve far more rigor than what I’ve applied here. This is just meant to establish a benchmark. But that benchmark is a really bad one for Democrats. One reasonably well-informed translation of the generic ballot polls is that the Democrats would lose 51 House seats if the election were held today. Continue reading
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