New presidential polls
The most interesting thing to me in this article about a recent NBC/WallStJournal poll isn’t Obama’s approval rating, which is low but still surprisingly high at 44%. What drew my attention instead was this:
While Perry appears to be the candidate to beat in the GOP field, he’s not as strong as Romney or a “generic” Republican when pitted directly against Obama. According to the poll, Perry would lose to Obama in a projected match-up, 42 percent to 47 percent.
By comparison, Romney and Obama are statistically tied, 45 percent to 46 percent. Meanwhile Obama would lose to a “generic” GOP candidate, 40 percent to 44 percent.
The direct match-up figures can mean one of two things. We may be dealing with the old conundrum that the more conservative Republican candidate (in this case, Perry) is favored to win the nomination, whereas the less conservative candidate (Romney) appeals to a broader group and is more likely to win the election.
Or, this alternative: right now Perry does less well than Romney in the election because most voters know who Romney is and are just getting to know Perry. Of course, since Perry appears to be the new Sarah Palin, male version—at least in the eyes of the MSM—as more of the non-Republican voters get to know Perry via the press, the more they may grow to hate him.
It’s also of interest that the generic Republican does the best against Obama. The candidates we imagine are almost always better than the ones we have.
Although the Republican field is large, the only candidates who have substantial support right now are Romney and Perry, so it’s shaping up to be a two-man race. If Sarah Palin enters, it will become a three-man (in the metaphoric sense) battle, and the conservative vote will most likely be split between Palin and Perry. My sense is that her entry would sew up the Republican nomination for Romney.
Aside from the presidential candidates’ numbers, the poll has some other stats. The number of people who think we’re headed in the wrong direction keeps climbing steadily, and is now at 73%, although 50% still approve of the way Obama has handled foreign policy. Figures for general approval of Democrats and Republicans aren’t too different from each other, with 11% strong approval and 22% some approval for Democrats, and 8% strong approval and 24% some approval for Republicans. If there were a proposal on the ballot to defeat every single member of Congress in one fell swoop, 54% say they’d vote for it. The percentage of respondents who give Obama a very poor rating on “being honest and straightforward” took a leap sometime between spring and fall of 2009 and has not significantly declined since; likewise with ratings of his leadership and a few other characteristics.
It is quite startling (at least to me), that respondents are far more focused on bringing down the deficit than on helping the economy. When asked which of the two Congress and the president should focus more on now, even though one action may be at the expense of the other, 56% said the deficit and 38% said the economy (there’s a rumor that Paul Krugman was in the latter group). What’s more, these relative proportions haven’t varied all that much since June of 2009.
Additionally, more people have become convinced that the economy hasn’t bottomed out yet, not fewer: 72% now think there’s worse ahead compared to 21% who think we’ve already seen the nadir (as opposed to the Nader, whom we’ve also already seen), and the former number has been climbing quite steadily in the last two years while the latter number has declined. More people are against the recent debt ceiling raise than are for it (40 to 22), and a large percentage of people dislike the way the negotiations over it were handled (71 to 6) .
Lest you think this poll was somehow more skewed than usual in favor of Republicans, and that this might account for some of its slightly more conservative findings, it doesn’t seem to have been: 43% of respondents had voted for Obama vs. 34% for McCain, with 2% “not sure” (who are they???) and 17% not voting (I wonder why such a high percentage of non-voters were included, although I’ve certainly got some theories about it). The total number of Democrats was higher (39% to 34%), and they had a stronger lean to the Democratic Party, than the Republicans did to the GOP.
Of course, polls are always suspect and at best are a mere snapshot in time. But this one was awfully interesting.
what were the actual questions…
and when and who did they poll…
ie… Pravda was good at making history too
Artfldgr: I’ve included a link to the poll. It’s in the sentence that starts, “Aside from the presidential…”
The strange thing, at least to me, is that this poll shows a more conservative slant than usual with polls, at least if you read all the results (the linked Yahoo article, of course, doesn’t really go into the more pro-conservative findings, but the poll itself does). And this was a poll (as I write towards the end of my post) that is fairly heavily skewed in favor of Obama voters.
“”(I wonder why such a high percentage of non-voters were included””
I’d guess because 95% of non voters are politically illiterate. Which makes them the same thing as a democrat without a ride to the polls.
What do you go with: reason or experience.
Reasonably, I agree with the sense that Palin will split the vote and allow Romney to win. And, it seems, reasonably, that Romney has the best shot at winning if one thinks polls are the best predictor and if one trusts polls.
But experience shows that moderate Republicans don’t win: Elder Bush and McCain versus younger Bush and Reagan. The former two did not generate any passion and, indeed, pandered so far to the middle that it appeared there was no fight in them at all.
I’d rather take the non-intuitive chance, but in a way, even the horrific outcome of losing the Presidency has a possible good outlook: four more years of Obama may be what is needed to teach this country what it needs to learn.
Politico wrote about the new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll today.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62667.html
The paragraph summarizing the poll results that I found most interesting was this one:
“Putting aside how they feel about his job performance, 74 percent of voters said they either strongly or somewhat approve of Obama as a person, his highest rating in the past year.”
So lots of people, 74% of those polled, still like Obama.
Considering his approval rating is substantially lower than 74% – some reputable polls have him in the high 30s% approval — doesn’t this put to rest once and for all that people who oppose his policies are not all, or even mostly, racists?
Or am I misinterpreting or reading more into it than I should?
Scott: I just read that part you mentioned about 74% still liking Obama. Odd thing is, when I went to the poll itself and other links provided, I could not find where they had asked that question. Do you know where it was?
My concern is that the economy will get so bad and the future will look so scary that many voters will see themselves as dependent on the government and they will vote Democrat to avoid the pain of budget cuts that Republicans could bring.
neo-neocon:
It’s quetiion # 17.
55% strongly approve of him as a person. 19% somewhat approve. Sum of the two is equal to the 74% they wrote about in the article.
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM170_090611_battlegroundpoll_results.html
It’s relatively easy to like someone when all your friends like them as well. But it is not so easy when the whole world is bad mouthing that person and nothing good is said about him. Then will you still like him?
That’s the true test, as was the same for love.
Scott: I see it now.
It’s an odd question–“approve of him as a person”? If they asked me that, I’m not even sure I’d answer it the negative. It sounds as though it means not as a political figure, but as a father or husband or something like that.
Seems to me that the Republicans already ran a “generic / geriatric ” candidate in 2008.
neo-neocon: I’d answer the question that I don’t like him as a person.
I find Obama’s arrogance, narcissism, blame shifting and refusal to accept responsibility very off putting. The other character flaw I’d ding him for is the long list of easily to prove lies he’s told. Finally, I don’t like that he sat in a church listening to an America hating race-baiter preacher for twenty years.
But, those qualities don’t seem to bother 74% of those polled. They like him. Which is disturbing.
neo –
I wouldn’t answer in the negative to question #17 either. I would say “somewhat approve” – after all, I think Obama is profoundly mistaken in his worldview and politics, but I don’t think he’s willfully evil. I see no reason to give an answer that sounds like I actually hate the man.
What bothers me, as always, is what I consider to be his astronomically high (44%) job approval rating. This is an indication of deep delusion and/or ignorance on behalf of nearly half of the American people, and a further indication that if we finally decide to see the enemy, the mark of accurate discernment will be the recognition that he is us. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and so forth, are mere manifestations, external symptoms, of a deep collective madness.
Even more depressing is this nonsense about a “generic Republican.” What’s terrifying about that, to me anyway, is that one interpretation of the datum could be that a majority of the people hold Republicans to an impossibly high standard, while making every allowance for Democratic malfeasance. What I see whenever I deal with polling data is that an absolute majority of adults in this country WANT to vote Democrat. When a voting majority (on a national level) emerges for a Republican, it is by default.
Hence the preference for the generic Republican (and Romney, who is that void personified) – “Generic Republican” means, to too many people, “utterly harmless and inoffensive alternative to extreme leftism.” The people love the liberal status quo, i.e., the entitlement-and-welfare state (I call it the “promissory state”). On the other hand, they don’t like its fiscal and moral correlates. They do not understand that the status quo and the correlates are peas in a pod.
That is not a revelation. What I’m saying is that, from my dour perch, it seems that the people don’t understand because they don’t WANT to understand – an obvious sign of cognitive dissonance.
Curtis is right, much as the possibility he mentions pains me. I hope we can win enough default votes to get an acceptable conservative in office in 2013, who will then take the necessary steps to avert catastrophe. The moves will be terribly unpopular at first, but if the economy gets going again, a positive association between conservative policies and sound economics might be created in the minds of voters – enough to crack through the dissonance and tilt resolution toward broadly conservative ideas instead of liberal ones.
That’s the dream. But Curtis mentions the nightmare – only catastrophe can shake us enough to wake us up. These polls do not alleviate my fear that the nightmare is coming.
Scott: but that was not the question.
I don’t especially like him as a person. But the question was: do you approve of him as a person? That’s a very different, and much stranger, question. I don’t even really know what it means.
kolnai: actually, I think many people who hold Republican presidential candidates to an impossibly high standard are Republicans.
One candidate is too much of a RINO. Another has the wrong stance on abortion. A third once said something nice about illegal immigrants. And on and on and on. No one is ideologically pure enough for some.
How do you like somebody who you say emphatically is taking your country in the wrong direction? WTF? Do these same people have a chance of liking the guy who steals their wallet or runs a key down the side of their car?
SteveH: once again, the question wasn’t whether people liked Obama. It’s whether they approved of him as a person. I may be nitpicking here on semantics, but I think that’s a very odd question, difficult for people to understand and to answer.
Obama is a charming narcissist. I once knew a man much like him. He would knife people in the back while smiling nicely to their face. He did it to me once and I realized he was a nasty piece of work. In spite of that, his charm was such that I had to constantly remind myself of what lay behind the charm. He was just so likable on a surface level. That is Obama. Hard not to like him, especiallly when you have not seen what lies behind the charm. Obama is an expert at glad handing, diverting blame, and generally always placing himself in the light of goodness. Most of us here are not deceived, but so many are. That is why these polls come out like this. People find it hard to dislike someone so seemingly charming.
I heartily concur J.J. Just a couple phrases come to mind: “throw under the bus” and “Alice Palmer.”
On the general subject of the public’s view of Obama: I’ve got to think there is some sort of warpage going on, some kind of right brain not talking to left brain or discontinuity or hypnosis, magical loving, emotionalism, I don’t whatism, but something is not right. The polls or wrong and I don’t know why they are wrong except for that they are not going to be how the people vote!
A clue might be given by the race for Weiner’s seat. Who would believe that Turner had a chance? But, there’s been hard work and education going on, and the result is that the race is even. This is what happened in Wisconsin as well.
I’m thinking of Sergey’s quote that our nation is in a schizophrenic mode. One way here, another way there. Talk to me on the phone about Obama and I like him, but when I go into the booth on my own, it will be a different story.
Curtis, it’s the race issue and all the eggshell walking political correctness has instilled in people. They don’t know how to be critical of a black man who is terrible at his job. Which is rather racist or something close to it when you dissect how they came to viewing him so differently simply because of the color of his skin.
That is a very good point, SteveH. Just the other day I was talking to a Jamaican and after I said the phrase “black history” I felt very uncomfortable because I used the adjective “black” more like the phrase “demonic.” I believe my face actually flushed red. The Jamaican took no offense.
1. The Press liked McCain until he won the primary, then turned on him. They’d like to be able to do the same with Romney.
2. When a President is popular, polls pretty much always have a higher percentage of respondents claiming they voted for him than was the case. When unpopular, the reverse is true. The same goes for political self-identification in reference to which party controls congress and whether it’s doing well or badly in the polls.
3. Given the perceived failure of measures aimed at helping the economy and the failure to even produce any serious attempt to reduce the deficit (which would help the economy in its own right), I’m startled it’s only 56/38.
Yanno, I think the question about approving of Obama as a person is a thinly veiled way of saying” If you don’t approve of Teleprompter Jesus as a person, you’re a hateful bigot ”
Okay, I don’t approve of Obama at all, he’s a weak, narcissistic, dishonest, cowardly, vicious , untrustworthy, race baiting miserable excuse for a human being. And that’s his good qualities
neo-
1) Yes, many conservatives have litmus tests. But ask yourself: if McCain was president right now, what would his approval rating be? I can’t believe it would be as high as 44%. Not because of conservative purists, but because more people are more willing to “give up on” a Republican than on a tender-hearted Democrat. The crucial difference is not made up of disillusioned purist conservatives. Rather, it’s made up of those who self-identify as “conservative” but are actually liberals or Democrats, of whom there are very many indeed –
e.g., Pennsylvania, which is fully 38% “conservative” and all of 19% liberal, but 40% Republican and 46% Democratic;
or California which splits 33%/24% conservative/liberal, but 33%/47% Republican/Democrat;
or Illinois, which breaks down, respectively, 36%/22% to 35%/48%…
All told, there is not a single state where self-identified liberals outnumber conservatives while Republicans outnumber Democrats, but there are 29 states where the reverse holds. In fact, there is only one domain in the entire U.S. where self-identified liberals outnumber conservatives – Washington D.C.
There are two ways to interpret this oddness. First, it pleases most (actual) conservatives to see it as revealing a silent majority of people with conservative values. Second, it could mean that most people are DUGROs (Democrats Until Given Reason Otherwise). I think the latter view is more correct today, or rather, I think that regardless of whether a majority claim to have personal values that lean conservative, a majority also brings an a priori “lean Democrat” presumption to the voting booth.
I emphasize the DUGRO interpretation when I write because it’s the one that matters – the one, that is, that sets the height of the mountain every national conservative candidate has to scale in order to win.
2) Side note: Tim Groseclose’s new book on media bias lends my view some support. He argues that the media is directly responsible for 8-10 percentage points of the national Democratic vote; in other words, no media bias, no Obama presidency, and given an Obama presidency, around a 35% approval rating right now, which is where my gut tells me it should be. DUGRO-ism is directly attributable to media effects.
3) Contrast Obama’s situation with Bush’s. According to some polls, Bush was getting down to the present Obama-range before 9/11, and the economy was pretty good at the time (e.g., a Zogby poll in August 2001 had him around 47%; a Harris poll in March 2001 had him around 48%).
Granted, the low-ballers were outliers, but no poll had him higher than 60% roughly between July and September 11, 2001. The point being that nothing really happened until 9/11 except passing NCLB and tax cuts.
As soon as actual bad stuff began to happen, his approval ratings plummeted about 20 percentage points in a single year, STARTING from 50% approval in mid-2006. My argument boils down to this: No Democratic president could go that low in approval rating without a catastrophe we can barely imagine.
I’d wager that if unemployment is the same at this time next year, and even if we’re in a double-dip recession, Obama’s approval rating will at no time average 30% or lower, as Bush’s began to do in 2007. He will hover around 40% at worst, because the people, as it were, are biased about 10 percentage points in favor of indulging Democrats.
Again, imagine if, absent 9/11, at this point in Bush’s first term our national credit rating was downgraded, or he had rammed through, say, a privatization of Social Security on a party-line vote. Always when considering counterfactuals like this we have to take into account the pure rate of disapproval PLUS the amount added by media bias, which I think Groseclose shows convincingly is a huge. Best guess: 45%-10 percentage points. That gives majority influence to DUGRO’s.
4) Looping back to the litmus test issue, I’m not sure why you think ideological intransigence is a problem worth mentioning on the right. It’s not like we’ve been nominating conservatives for the past twenty years, and most purists wind up voting for the nominee. Even Romney, God help us, is doing rather well in GOP polls.
So, while it is true that no one is pure enough for some people, that doesn’t explain the general indulgence for Democrats by comparison to Republicans. That, I maintain, is due to the DUGROs.
Kolnai, the DUGRO exist because the media has successfully inserted the peer pressure dynamic of fashion into politics. Which sets up the political landscape to make Obama be viewed as the latest cool lip ring while a republican is a Members Only jacket.
It all increasingly has nothing to do with success or failure of policies of the two sides. And has everything to do with tapping into people’s need to fit in with what is said to be fashionable.