Polls and Posturing

by DemFromCT

USA Today and Newsweek polls both say that the WaPo overnight poll on NSA does not represent what's going on.

A majority of Americans disapprove of a massive Pentagon database containing the records of billions of phone calls made by ordinary citizens, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. About two-thirds are concerned that the program may signal other, not-yet-disclosed efforts to gather information on the general public.

Mystery Pollster's summary hits the highlights (referring to Newsweek and WaPo prior to the USA Today poll):

When public opinion polls probe reactions to complex policy issues, they sometimes get conflicting results because differences in language and context push those without well formed opinions in different directions.  For that reason, the "best question" is rarely just one question or poll.  The most "scientific" approach is to look at many different polls that ask about the same issue in different ways and compare the results (see Professor M's advice).  In that regard, I would have done better yesterday to heed the comment of reader Nadia Hassan: "I guess we'll just have to see more polling for a clearer picture."  Over the next several weeks, we will see many new polls asking about this issue, and this confusing picture should grow clearer with each new survey.

If one of these two polls we have now turns out to be a true outlier, we will know soon enough.  Meanwhile, the safest bet is that reality of public opinion at the moment falls somewhere in between.

And since no one trusts Bush, that bit about "about two-thirds are concerned that the program may signal other, not-yet-disclosed efforts to gather information on the general public" should be a major concern at the Senate hearings.

Meanwhile Bush is steady in the Gallup at 33%,  the lowest miderm rating in polling history for a President. That's the backdrop for tonight's Militarization of The Border stunt speech.

Use this as an open thread. More on the flip.

From Gallup:

Bush Short on Support From Republicans

Current public support for the job Bush is doing is down from early to mid-April when his approval rating was in the 36% to 37% range. The 31% approval recorded for Bush earlier this month is his lowest according to Gallup trends, but still above the low Gallup recorded for all presidents, set by Harry Truman in 1952 with 22% approval.

Last week, Gallup reported a notable decline in support for Bush among Republicans. Republicans' approval of Bush was 68% in the May 5-7 survey, down from an average of close to 80% from February to April. This compares with an average of 85% approval from Republicans for all of 2005. With just 70% of Republicans now approving of Bush, the new poll confirms that Bush has indeed lost esteem within his political base.

Bush's approval rating from independents, 23%, remains about where it has been in recent polls, while his 12% approval rating from Democrats is slightly above the single-digit readings recorded in the two previous surveys.

Many have speculated that the administration's policies on immigration and federal spending have angered conservatives, but conservative Republican support for Bush has held steady in the past two months, though it is down from where it was in previous years. At the same time, the percentage of moderate and liberal Republicans who approve of Bush's job performance has dropped 20 percentage points, from 65% to 45%.

My emphasis. That means that Bush is down to the core of the core, although that 45% can drop a bit more - say, to the 20s. Bush is a talented man. I'm sure he can pull it off. And let me add : no one likes a loser. Some of those numbers will peel off based on that alone.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

Speaking of posturing:

Conservative Christians Criticize Republicans

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: May 15, 2006

WASHINGTON, May 13 — Some of President Bush's most influential conservative Christian allies are becoming openly critical of the White House and Republicans in Congress, warning that they will withhold their support in the midterm elections unless Congress does more to oppose same-sex marriage, obscenity and abortion.

[John Casper]

Great post DemfromCT. Jane Hamsher has done some fine posts on the WaPo's neocon polling expert, Richard Morin. I have little doubt that he rammed his poll through quickly, to depress the numbers about legitimate fears about civil liberties.

[Newsie8200]

Actually, I just think ABCNews and WaPo wanted their poll out first. It looks like those questions were part of a larger poll that was supposed to be conducted over a couple of nights... they just released the results from the first night.

[DemFromCT]

John Casper

While I have my issues with Morin (who hates bloggers, as seen in comments he made about them after the Nov 2004 election in print) I have a great deal of respect for Claudia Deane, who is the other WaPo in-house pollster.

[mamayaga]

And let me add : no one likes a loser.

This is another way of stating an interesting liability that Republicans may face a little bit more than Dems:
People who are uncomfortable taking stands or having opinions that are at odds with those of their community (i.e., those who feel that conformity of opinion is a necessary part of group membership) are also more likely to have conservative political beliefs and therefore more likely to be part of the Republican base. To the extent that the Bush core is made up of those whose support stems from conformist tendencies rather than loyalty to a strong man leader, this peeling away should accelerate, rather than slow down.

It's interesting to look at Prof. Pollkatz's comparison of JAR trends among presidents in that regard. Nixon's ratings plummeted sharply after people started flipping and being convicted in the Watergate affair, then levelled off in the mid-20s. That sharp drop, in my opinion, was the peeling off of the conformists as people around them started saying bad things about Nixon. The holdouts at the botttom were the diehard imperial president loyalists who never acknowledged that Nixon did anything wrong.

If you look at Chimpy's trend over the last two months, it seems like there may be an accelerating decline there as well, though it may be too early to tell. In other words, unlike Josh Marshall, I don't think we have yet neared the point where each decline in JAR is harder to achieve due to having reached only the hard core Bushists. The conformists have to finish peeling off first. All the more reason to keep those bumperstickers on your car.

[DemFromCT]

Per ABC News polling director Gary Langer, "These different results tell us a lot about how compelling the competing interests are. The main differences I see between this and Newsweek, vs. ours, are that we first asked about the broader investigation-vs.-privacy issue, and we laid out much more specifically the rationale for the program (to analyze call patterns in an effort to identify terrorism suspects). When these competing, positive interests are at stake, language and information matter - a fact that will surely play itself out as the debate progresses.

From the Note today.

[DemFromCT]

mamayaga I agree. Those are the mod/lib Rs that can still peel off, as I've suggested. Hard core imperialists are out of reach.

[Mimikatz]

Based on my memory of the Nixon years, I agree that Mamayaga is right. And once the conformists change their views, they really don'l come back, because the effort of changing was so unsettling. If anything, they withdraw. None of this bodes well for the GOP in the midterms, which is why I think we see Gingrich talking about the party of "San Francisco and Vermont".

[demtom]

DemfromCT, didn't you think it was odd, though, that ABC felt the need to rush this poll out on one day's numbers? We've had plenty of other hotter-than-hot issues arise in recent months (Dubai, Libby's indictment) with no such hasty readings provided. The fact mentioned above -- that a standard poll was already being taken -- perhaps explains it, but I still think the fact that the initial ABC/Post number confirmed what the still-Bush-leaning press wants to believe about the public's view is the reason it was put out with so few qualifiers, and allowed to become official "reaction" for 24 hours.

Mystery Pollster can drive me crazy sometimes. (I hope this post of his was written prior to the USA Today poll, which so closely echoed Newsweek's numbers that you have to believe 52ish-42ish is the accurate breakdown) His suggestion that the truth must lie somewhere "in between" is the same split-the-difference-between-Dems-and-GOP thinking that has moved the country rightward in he past decade despite the public moving the other direction. The inference I draw from the conflicting numbers is, the ABC poll was flawed in relying on a one-day sample and in asking very helpful-to-Bush questions. Mystery Pollster's equal-weight-to-all-positions stance strikes me as naive, whether deliberate or indavertent.

[DemFromCT]

He's got a newer post up now that USA Gallup is out.

Here is what Gallup's Jeff Jones concludes about the different results produced by the three most recent surveys:

It is not entirely clear why the ABC News/Washington Post one-night poll showed a larger percentage of positive responses, although the question stated that the collected phone data were analyzed "in an effort to identify possible terrorism suspects."

Because these questions are designed to measure public opinion in an area that involves two competing principles, fighting terrorism and protecting citizens' privacy, it may not be surprising that specific phrases or nuances of wording in survey questions could cause different response patterns.

The Gallup report is worth reading in full -- do it today before it falls behind Gallup's subscription wall.

it's hard to imagine that the WaPo/ABC poll would deliberately mislead.. other polling would quickly expose that.

[DemFromCT]

Speaking of polls:

A new survey is showing residents in Florida and Georgia do not approval of President Bush's job performance. The numbers from our exclusive Survey USA poll is listed below.

Florida
36% Approve
61% Disapprove
3% Not Sure

Georgia
41% Approve
58% Disapprove
2% Not Sure