Obama and Working-Class Whites

May 13, 2008 12:42 PM

The anticipated outcome of today’s contest in West Virginia is prompting a fresh review of Barack Obama’s difficulties winning support from working-class white voters in this year’s Democratic primaries. One question: The extent to which it does or doesn’t predict problems for Obama if he’s the party’s nominee in November.

The effect, which we started reporting back in February, has been clear in the primaries: Whites who don’t have a college degree have voted for Hillary Clinton by a 2-1 margin, 62-31 percent, while those who’ve gone through college have divided evenly, 48-47 percent.

It seems that the effect stems in part from the thematic positioning of the two, with Clinton’s more nuts-and-bolts approach better attuned to the working class, Obama’s inspirational pitch for a new politics resounding better among more upscale Democrats. Obama’s been helped by the fact that better-educated voters are disproportionately likely to turn out – especially in primaries.

But primaries only tell us so much about general elections. In our latest ABC/Post poll, testing each of the Democrats against John McCain, there’s a shortfall among less-educated whites for both: McCain leads Obama by 12 points in this group, Clinton by 8.

Obama, with his upscale appeal, does better among better-educated whites: McCain’s just +3 vs. Obama, compared with McCain’s 12-point advantage against Clinton among college-educated whites. That accounts for Obama’s better showing against McCain overall, 51-44 percent in our poll, vs. 49-46 percent in a Clinton-McCain matchup.

                         Obama  McCain    Clinton  McCain
    Whites, no college     40%    52        44%     52    
    Whites, college grads  47     50        42      54

There are other potential impacts of race and socioeconomic status. As we noted in our poll analysis yesterday, 17 percent of less-educated whites say they’re at least somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of an African-American president; among better-educated whites that declines to 4 percent. As noted, there’s a similar effect on comfort with a woman president – and McCain’s age is a far bigger negative than either of these. Each of the candidates has room for some consciousness-raising on these concerns.

It’s also worth noting that the latte-vs.-lunch bucket effect has not been entirely consistent in all primaries this year. Obama won less-educated whites in the Vermont and Wisconsin primaries, was +2 in Utah and came within 4 points in his home state of Illinois (although in each he again did better with upscale whites).

It’s fair for the Obama camp to point out that he doesn’t do significantly worse against McCain among working-class whites than Clinton does, and that he does better with their upscale counterparts. And Obama’s numbers are nothing like John Kerry’s and Al Gore’s; they lost working-class whites to George W. Bush by 24 points and 17 points, respectively.

But working-class whites nonetheless are a group with which Obama might well like to improve. If he loses today’s primary, and next week’s in Kentucky, they’ll be the first place to look. And less-educated voters account for a greater share of the turnout in general elections than in primaries. While Obama could win a general election without them – just as he leads McCain today – it’s also true that the last Democrat to capture the White House, Bill Clinton, ran evenly among working-class whites as he did so.

May 13, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (22) | TrackBack (0)

Follow the Lines

May 09, 2008 2:44 PM

This morning our Political Unit broke news when Barack Obama for the first time inched into the lead in its tally of Democratic super delegates. That inspired the attached charts – showing Obama and Hillary Clinton’s accumulation of pledged delegates, super delegates, total delegates and total votes this year.

We’re fond of numbers here in the Polling Unit, but sometimes pictures sure help tell the story. Click here to see our slides on how the Democratic primary campaign has unfolded so far.

(Note, we've time-stamped the charts that include superdelegates; they're a moving target that our Political Unit continues to track. And we've run popular vote three ways - without Florida or Michigan; with Florida but not Michigan, where Obama wasn't on the ballot; and with both. Take your pick.)

May 9, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (17) | TrackBack (0)

Battling Data: What Gives?

May 05, 2008 12:37 PM

There were at least a few crossed eyes today over conflicting data and analysis in the latest New York Times/CBS and USA Today/Gallup polls. We share your pain.

Briefly: Times/CBS has Barack Obama +12 vs. Hillary Clinton, with a headline saying Obama “survives furor” over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. USAT/Gallup has Clinton +7, saying the flap over Wright “pulls Obama down.” Adding to the mix is Gallup’s daily poll, which has Obama +4.

These polls also differ in their general election match-ups: Times/CBS has Obama +11 and Clinton +12 vs. John McCain, while USAT/Gallup has them basically tied. Gallup daily has Clinton-McCain tied, McCain +5 vs. Obama.

Before we get into what gives, we’ll use this as an opportunity to repeat our long-standing advice to de-emphasize the horse race in pre-election polls. It is lowest-common-denominator reporting. And in poll-to-poll comparisons it’s the single most unstable measure we see. (Just a few weeks ago Newsweek had Obama +19 and Gallup daily had him +3 on the same day. Aagh.)

As to possible causes: Times/CBS ask Democrats (and Dem-leaning independents) whom they’d like to see the party nominate; USAT/Gallup asks whom “you would be most likely to support.” Since most Democrats who wanted to vote already have done so, these can be understood differently (potentially confusing past vote with vs. current support), possibly contributing to different results. (In any case it’s maybe not the best question to emphasize, since all those who already have voted don’t actually get a do-over.)

Also, Times/CBS asks the Democratic race first, then asks favorability ratings, then asks general election matchups. USAT/Gallup does it opposite: First the general election, then the favorables, then the Democratic preference. That can create differences (and asking favorability directly before vote preference is something we try to avoid).

USAT/Gallup gave its Obama-Clinton result among all Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents; Times/CBS, among “Democratic primary voters.” (It also reported this race among registered leaned Dems, Obama +8.) On the general election trial heats, USAT/Gallup reported results among likely voters, Times/CBS, among registereds. But it’s hard to blame the differences on this; we haven’t seen a lot of variation in gen pop vs. reg. vs. LV results. (Sample size can be a factor as well; USAT/Gallup interviewed 1,019 adults, including 516 leaned Democrats; Times/CBS, a smaller sample of 671 adults, including 283 “Democratic primary voters.” Both called Thursday through Saturday.)

In reporting such polls it's perhaps a natural reflex to take the horse-race result and search for explanations. USAT/Gallup had Obama doing less well, so it seems to have reached out to the Wright issue for support. Times/CBS did not have this change, so it went the other way, though the Times story is laden with caveats.

USAT notes that a third of likely voters say they’re less likely to support Obama because of Wright. That’s like the 30 percent in our own April poll, on the first go-around of the Wright story, who said Obama hadn’t done enough to distance himself from Wright. At least in our data, though, it didn’t appear to hurt Obama either vs. Clinton or McCain; critics on Wright fit the non-Obama profile.

None of this resolves the matter. At best it’s a reminder that all polls – even good-quality ones – are done differently, and don’t always get the same results or engender the same analysis. And that horse-race results, in the midst of a close and unsettled campaign, may be particularly vulnerable to these kinds of influences. Said it before, saying it again: Easing back on the horse race, and looking instead at the underlying dynamics, is always a better way to go.

May 5, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)

The President and Public Opinion

April 29, 2008 9:20 AM

Here's a summary of the public views of the president and the economy in advance of his press conference this morning.

Per the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, 4/13, +/-3:

-Thirty-three percent of Americans approve of President Bush’s work in office overall, a point from his career-low 32 percent earlier this year. Sixty-four percent disapprove. Those who “strongly” disapprove outnumber strong approvers by a 3-1 margin.

-The president’s rating has been remarkably stable – he’s had 32 or 33 percent approval in nine ABC/Post polls since July and hasn’t exceeded 36 percent approval in a year and a half. He’s gone 39 months with less-than-majority approval, this month surpassing Harry Truman’s previous record from 1949-1952.

-Ratings of the president correlate almost perfectly with the view that the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, now held by 64 percent. Sixty-one percent reject the argument that the United States must win in Iraq in order for the broader war on terrorism to be a success. Sixty-five percent disapprove of Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq.

-Iraq’s not his only problem: A career-high 70 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy (including more than a third of Republicans).

-Bush’s ratings have been more partisan on average than those of any president since ABC News started polling in 1981.

Re economic anxiety:

-Consumer confidence in our weekly ABC News index is its lowest since July 1993, coming out of the 1990-91 recession and its aftermath. Eighty-five percent say the economy's in bad shape, 77 percent call it a bad time to spend money and 48 percent rate their personal finances negatively. Confidence has fallen very sharply this year, with the index dropping from -20 Jan. 6 to -40 today, compared with its 22-year-average of -10 and a record low of -50. It’s dropped in each of the last four quarters.

-Two-thirds say gas prices are causing them financial hardship; lower-income families are especially hard hit.

-Seventy-nine percent of Americans don’t think the government’s forthcoming economic stimulus will help avoid or ease a recession, up from 67 percent in February. Just a quarter say they’ll spend their rebate checks; most instead plan on saving the money (32 percent) or using it to pay existing bills (31 percent).

-The economy is far and away the top election issue, cited by 41 percent (Iraq war 18 percent, all others single digits). Americans who cite the economy as their top issue favor either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton over John McCain, by 9 and 14 points, respectively.

-At his Feb. 28 presser Bush said, “I don’t think we’re headed to recession.” In a poll we did a month earlier, Feb. 1, 59 percent of Americans said they thought the country already was in one. By mid-March that was up to 76 percent in a Gallup/USAT poll.

For details on the president's approval rating over time, see this piece.

April 29, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Is it Age?

April 24, 2008 11:45 AM

In the midst of the current discussion of the role of race in the campaign (see yesterday’s blog) comes the curious suggestion from Sen. Obama that his chief challenge is about age, not socioeconomic status. The data don’t seem to bear it out.

As The New York Times reports today: "‘Our problem has less to do with white working-class voters,’ Mr. Obama told reporters Wednesday in Indiana. ‘In fact the problem is that – to the extent that there is a problem – is that older voters are very loyal to Senator Clinton.’"

Age clearly is a factor, as we’ve covered before. But it’s equally clear that socioeconomic status, as measured by the education and income alike, is independently a factor, and a big one. That’s why we’ve focused on SES in the past, e.g. here and here.

Look just at seniors, for instance: Across all primaries to date, among less well-off white seniors (those with less than $50,000 in household incomes), Clinton has beaten Obama by 70-22 percent. Among white seniors with more than $100,000 in household incomes, by contrast, Obama’s actually run ahead, by 50-45 percent.

Put another way, Obama’s support from high-income white seniors has been 28 points higher than it’s been among working-class white seniors. That isn’t just a senior problem.

The results are similar by education – Obama does 21 points better with white seniors who’ve earned college degrees than with those who haven’t. College-educated white seniors have favored Clinton by just 8 points, 50-42 percent; those without degrees have backed her by a whopping 48 points, 69-21 percent.

The relationship is weakest in Obama’s best age group, under 30s, but it’s still there. He’s won under-30 whites in $100,000+ households by 65-33 percent; he’s won young whites in under-$50,000 households by a much closer 53-42 percent.

And the effect holds true in middle age groups as well: For example, Obama’s done 17 points better with white 30- to 44-year-olds who’ve gotten through college than with those who haven’t; and 14 points better with those age 45-64 who’ve been graduated.

It’s surely the case that Obama’s not connected as well as Clinton with seniors. But his relative shortfall with working-class voters is an issue in and of itself – especially if he’s the party’s nominee in November. Primaries attract an upscale crowd; in this year’s Democratic contests, 52 percent of white voters have been college graduates. There tend to be fewer of them in general elections – 44 percent in 2004. To compensate, improving his appeal to lower-SES voters - regardless of their age - is on Obama's plate.

         Among whites
         Clinton-Obama
No college
 18-29      43-53%
 30-44      56-37
 45-64      63-30
 65+        69-21

College grad
 18-29      37-59
 30-44      42-54
 45-64      52-44
 65+        50-42

<$50K
 18-29      42-53
 30-44      48-44
 45-64      64-30 
 65+        70-22

$50K-$100K
 18-29      45-50 
 30-44      48-47
 45-64      57-36
 65+        55-34

$100K+
 18-29      33-65  
 30-44      45-51
 45-64      52-44 
 65+        45-50

April 24, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (59) | TrackBack (0)

The Role of Race, Revisited

April 23, 2008 2:09 PM

Results in the Pennsylvania exit poll, not available from previous contests, underscore a potentially sensitive point should Barack Obama win the Democratic party’s presidential nomination: The role of race in voters’ decisions.

In Pennsylvania, as in previous primaries, white voters who rated the candidates’ race as an important factor in their vote were more apt to support Hillary Clinton, compared with those who said race wasn’t important. An open question has been whether this is best seen simply as affinity voting – whites more apt to support the white candidate, akin to women supporting the female candidate and blacks the African-American candidate – or as something less benign.

The new element is the matchup of Obama and John McCain in a general election trial heat in the Pennsylvania exit poll. The result: Among whites who called race an important factor, just 54 percent said they’d support Obama vs. McCain; the rest either went for McCain (27 percent) or said they wouldn’t vote. That compares with Obama’s much higher support – 72 percent – among whites who said race was not important in their vote.

We should be careful not to overanalyze this result. The number of whites who called race important was small – 13 percent of Pennsylvania voters – and the net effect of the differential is to cost Obama 2 percentage points of total vote, while giving McCain around a point and a half.

This may signal a problem for the Democrats if Obama's the nominee; after all, these results are among voters in a closed Democratic primary – people presumably loyal to the party. On the other hand, these Democrats were caught smack in the midst of their intramural food fight, before the general election campaign has begun. Looking ahead to November is fundamentally premature.

One reason the effect of race does bear watching – beyond the results themselves – is that they’re not replicated in similar measures of the impact of the candidates’ sex. Clinton has done better overall with women who say the sex of the candidates is important in their vote – 26 points better in Pennsylvania, about the average in all primaries to date. (Men who call the candidates' sex important also have been more apt to support Clinton, by 9 points.)  But here's the crucial difference: whether Pennsylvania voters said sex was important or not important in their vote did not materially affect their preference in a Clinton-McCain matchup. That makes race, and its impact on an Obama-McCain contest, look like a different kettle of fish.

In a related point, the Pennsylvania data suggest that white voters who saw Clinton as not honest were about 20 points more apt to support her over Obama anyway, if they rated race as an important issue (compared with those who saw her as not honest, but said race was not important). But in this equation sex is a factor as well: Women who saw Clinton as not honest likewise were about 20 points more apt to support her if they rated the candidates' sex as important. In any case, these are very small groups – 4 percent of voters in each case – so the net effect again was very small, and not at all decisive.

As far as we can see, the impact of race as a self-described “important factor” in vote preference has not tipped the balance in any primary to date (with the possible exception of the extremely close contest in New Mexico). Nonetheless, the discussion of race, and sex alike, raises questions of how best these effects are measured and how best to understand them – in effect, how to parse out positively influenced voting behavior from negatively influenced voting.

Any way you cut them, the Pennsylvania results are a reminder of the complexities involved – and of the scrutiny the role of race likely will receive if it's Obama who leads his party into the November election.

April 23, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (16) | TrackBack (0)

PA Primary: What to Watch

April 21, 2008 2:38 PM

Groups to watch – and perhaps not watch - in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary:

EDUCATION - It’s hard see a single factor more compelling than socioeconomic status, particularly as defined by education. It’s split the Democratic electorate nearly all year, and as with her past victories, it’s what Hillary Clinton will be counting on tomorrow.

Across primaries to date Obama’s won college graduates by 52-43 percent, while Clinton’s won less-educated voters by a very similar 52-42. The picture sharpens among whites only (there’s no difference by education among blacks): White college graduates have split 47-47 percent, while those with no college degree have gone 2-1 for Clinton, 60-31 percent.

The proportion of college-to-non-college voters isn’t always critical – Obama cruised among both groups in Wisconsin – but it’s mattered more often than not. Last month, in economically stressed Ohio, less-educated voters were in great supply (just 38 percent of white voters were college graduates, compared with an average of 52 percent across all primaries to date) and that helped Clinton immeasurably: She won less-educated whites by 71-27 percent, while her edge among white college graduates was just 52-45 percent.

TIME OF DECISION and NEGATIVITY – Late deciders have been turning to Clinton recently, but only recently. She’s done better among late deciders than among other voters in 11 contests, including the eight most recent. Going farther back, though, she’s done the same among late deciders in 10 contests, and worse in 10.

The long campaign period, heavy advertising and sharp final arguments in Pennsylvania make late deciders especially worth a look tomorrow. Ditto for views of the tone of the campaign; in primaries to date, 52 percent of Democratic voters have seen Clinton as having attacked Obama unfairly; fewer, 38 percent, have said Obama’s unfairly attacked Clinton. Again the perception – and its relationship to vote preference – may matter.

AGE, SEX and RACE –The divisions by age, sex and race have been impressive all year. Obama’s won voters under 30 by 57-38 percent; Clinton’s won seniors by 58-33 percent. Obama’s won men by 50-42 percent; Clinton, women by 51-43 percent. And Obama’s won blacks by 81-16 percent while Clinton’s won whites by 54-39 percent, and Hispanics by 62-34 percent.

Though we only have previous data for Pennsylvania from 1992 and before, African-Americans have had relatively low turnout in its Democratic primaries, peaking at 17 percent in 1988 and 1984. As with all voters’ age and sex, blacks’ share of the electorate may matter much.

RURAL – Clinton’s had a 51-39 percent advantage over Obama among all rural voters to date, the biggest difference between the two when measured by locale; Obama’s had a scant 49-45 percent edge among small-town voters. Rural voters have accounted for 11 percent of all Democratic primary voters; small-town residents, 6 percent. They may constitute a larger share in Pennsylvania, and they’re of interest given the debate over Obama’s comment about small-town voters focusing on religion and guns. (Gun ownership also will be measured in the Pennsylvania exit poll.)

PARTY ID –  Pennsylvania’s primary rules – closed to all but registered Democrats – may work in Clinton’s favor; to date she’s won self-described Democrats by a scant 50-46 percent, while independents have favored Obama by 53-39 percent. Self-identified Republicans, 5 percent of Democratic voters to date, likewise have gone 51-39 percent for Obama. Registration in the state’s at a record high; the exit poll will tell us who turns out in terms of party allegiance.

RELIGION – There’s been some talk in the campaign about Clinton’s support among Catholics, and it’s true that she’s done better among Catholics than among all Protestants – but that’s only because far and away most African-Americans are Protestant. Among whites only the vote to date has been very similar – 59-36 percent for Clinton among white Catholics, 56-37 percent among white Protestants. If Clinton does especially well among white Catholics in Pennsylvania that’ll be worth examining, especially to see if it perhaps masks a socioeconomic effect.

UNION – Union members, or voters from union households, accounted for 34 percent of the turnout in Ohio; it’s been higher only in Michigan, New York and Illinois. But that was down from its level in 2004 (44 percent from union households), and it didn’t much matter:  Among whites, Clinton’s support was similar from union members (69 percent), union household members (66 percent) and people from non-union households (62 percent) alike. Whether union membership matters is an open question again in Pennsylvania.

ISSUES and QUALITIES – The economy’s been the No. 1 concern, but without a strong tilt in vote; voters who picked it have divided about closely, 49-46 percent, between Clinton and Obama. Those more concerned about Iraq have favored Obama, 53-42 percent; health care voters have gone to Clinton by a similar margin.

There’s been much more differentiation by personal attributes. Voters who care most about experience have favored Clinton by 90-6 percent in primaries to date. Those focused on a candidate who “cares about people like me” have been very slightly for Clinton; the few who care most about electability have divided evenly. But far and away the single biggest appeal to Democrats has been the candidate who can best bring about “needed change”; a whopping 51 percent have called it the most important quality, and Obama’s won them by 68-28 percent. Tomorrow will tell how well that theme plays in Pennsylvania.

April 21, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (100) | TrackBack (0)

Issues and Attributes

April 18, 2008 1:40 PM

The demand for substance in our election campaigns is a worthy one. The suggestion that the candidates’ personal attributes fall outside that realm is not.

That’s particularly so in primaries. General election contests largely are defined by partisanship and policy issues on which the competing candidates tend to be starkly different. In nominating campaigns, by contrast, candidates generally have much more in common politically - clearing the way for the importance of personal attributes to rise.

So it is today in the Democratic race for president, where the sharpest divisions and the greatest changes have come not on issues but in views of the candidates’ personal qualities. We’ve seen huge swings in Hillary Clinton’s ratings on measures such as electability, leadership, and honesty and trustworthiness. And personal attributes are at least as powerful as issue preferences in predicting vote choice.

The biggest change in our latest ABC/Post poll is in electability – arguably not a trivial matter to Democrats thirsting for the White House. In December, before the voting began, 59 percent of Democrats (and Democratic-leaning independents) picked Clinton as the candidate with the best chance to win the general election. Today half as many still pick her. Obama’s rating as more electable meanwhile has soared from 16 percent then (John Edwards was still running at the time) to 62 percent now.

There are others: In December 27 percent saw Obama as more honest and trustworthy than either Clinton or Edwards; today, head-to-head against Clinton, twice as many pick Obama on this measure. Obama’s rating as the stronger leader has gone from 19 percent in December to 44 percent now; Clinton’s, in the same period, has lost 12 points. On empathy – better understanding the problems of people like you – preference for Obama has nearly doubled since December, while Clinton has slipped slightly. On experience, by contrast – but only on experience – Clinton continues clearly to prevail.

There have been big swings on the issues as well. In December Clinton led by 45 points in trust to handle health care; today, it’s down to 10 points. She led by 27 points in trust to handle terrorism; today it’s 5. On the economy she’s gone from +40 to -3; on Iraq, from +25 to a dead heat.

But issue preferences in and of themselves do not explain the contest. The candidates are essentially even on the issues, save for Clinton’s diminished lead on health care. Yet they are not tied in voter preferences; Democrats by a 10-point margin say they’d like Obama to win the nomination.

There are a variety of factors that push Obama into the lead, some policy-based, some thematic, but also some focused on assessments of the candidates’ personal qualities. In regression analyses evaluating the candidates’ ratings on issues and attributes alike, attributes are at least as strong, and in most cases stronger, in predicting vote preference.

Attributes, then, are hardly a sideshow. Like views on the issues, they represent fundamental evaluations formed by the voters and used in vote choices. They’re a significant part of what campaigns – especially primary campaigns – are all about.

April 18, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (21) | TrackBack (0)

Going Global?

April 02, 2008 12:26 PM

A poll put out by the BBC World Service that's getting some attention today headlines a 4-point improvement in positive views of the United States in the 34 countries in which it was conducted. But before jumping on the result, consider the methodology.

The poll’s disclosure notes that nearly half the samples – 16 of the 34 – were urban-only, with noncoverage of the full adult national population ranging from 26 percent to 95 percent, averaging 66 percent (leaving aside India, where the coverage is unclear). That’s the share of the national population in each country that had no chance of being selected for participation in the survey – a high to extremely high level of noncoverage.

Does it matter? Unknown, without full national data to compare. But as I always say, imagine an urban-only poll in the United States: President Kerry would love the results. The point is that we wouldn’t accept urban-only coverage in a U.S. survey – which raises the question of why we’d regard it as acceptable in other countries.

There are other points to consider. The results have been aggregated across countries without weights that would make them proportional to population size. That means the approximately 1,000 urban-only respondents in Costa Rica (which has a national adult population of about 3 million) carry the same weight in the total as the 1,000 urban-only respondents in China, with about a billion adults.

Figuring out how to weight this kind of poll proportionally would be an impressive challenge in itself, given the range of population coverage. But simply aggregating data from countries of such disparate size hardly seems a solution; samples as a rule strive for proportionality to population distribution.

The poll is headlined as reporting “global” views, and its 34 countries do cross the globe. But with 34 included, that leaves about 160 other countries (depending on how you define the term) left out. The thought process behind the choice of these particular 34 isn’t entirely clear. The argument that the biggest-population countries are included seems confounded both by the reported noncoverage in some of those countries (95 percent in Indonesia, 85 percent in Brazil, 57 percent in China) and the fact that the results from smaller-population countries are given equal weight.

The poll report is based on a single question, asking people their positive or negative views of several countries (half the respondents in each country were read the names of seven countries; the other half, seven other countries). The poll’s analysis suggests that views of the United States may be improving based on “hope that a new administration will move away from the foreign policies that have been so unpopular in the world.”

It’d be good to know the data supporting that hypothesis, since others may be equally plausible – beyond the fact that a 4-point change, from 28 to 32 percent positive, is a pretty thin reed in this kind of project. (It's a single country, but in our latest national poll in Iraq, nearly as many said a new U.S. administration will make things worse there, 27 percent, as better, 33 percent, with the rest expecting no difference.)

Based on our view that not all data are created equally, our longstanding policy at ABC News is to vet polls our programs are considering for air - sampling methodology, overall results and analysis alike - to try to ensure that they meet our standards and are reported in context. Admittedly we miss a few from time to time, but for details on what we strive to accomplish, see our standards and methodology page.

April 2, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November

March 31, 2008 2:02 PM

Despite the intense interest, we’re urging our shop not to put too much weight on general election polling just yet; November is a long way off, and the continued bloodletting in the Democratic race makes it a less-than-ideal time to ask Democrats, or independents for that matter, their preference in the fall contest.

As it is, overall data don’t seem to show significant movement. Averaging airworthy national polls in each of the last three months points to a continued dead heat between John McCain and Hillary Clinton, and a dead heat between McCain and Obama in January and March, after a slight advantage for Obama during his successful February. (Table below.) Looking just at the second half of March doesn’t change the story.

          Average of airworthy national polls
         Obama vs. McCain   Clinton vs. McCain
March         45-45              46-46
February      48-43              45-47
January       44-45              46-47

Gallup’s latest five-day tracking poll, completed Saturday (it’s been tracking daily since March 11), is a little better for McCain,- +4 vs. Clinton and +3 vs. Obama. Both are significant given the large sample sizes, but all the same it seems way too soon to mark this down as a trend.

Some airworthy state polls show close races in some states that are usually Democratic, or strategically important – Clinton just +3 vs. McCain in California and Connecticut, McCain +4 vs. Clinton and just -1 vs. Obama in Ohio, both Democrats +2 vs. McCain in Pennsylvania (all these are effectively dead heats, given sampling tolerances). The latest in Florida (not terribly recent - from late February) had McCain +9 vs. Clinton and +10 vs. Obama.

The Democratic contest, again, is the one in which the fight is still raging. It’s not a great time to ask Obama and Clinton supporters whether they’ll kiss and make up after it’s all over. And some independents, generally chary of partisanship, may be turned off by the ongoing battle.

But partisans on both sides usually bind their wounds once their nominating contests are over, and independents make their choice on the candidates’ merits, not on what they endured to get there. All this suggests general election polling will mean a lot more down the road - once we have nominees.

March 31, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (10) | TrackBack (0)