The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer has won two Emmy awards for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq, and The Numbers blog was honored this year as winner of the 2008 Iowa Gallup Award for Excellent Journalism Using Polls.
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Pols, Polls and Pushback
October 20, 2009 4:53 PM
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had some pretty harsh criticism of our latest poll today, charging in a radio interview that it was “deliberately rigged.” He's entitled, of course, to his opinion. But not to a distortion of the facts.
What’s his gripe? Gingrich made the comment on our Salt Lake City affiliate, KSL-AM, when asked about our finding that only 20 percent of Americans now identify themselves as Republicans, the fewest since September 1983 in ABC News/Washington Post polls. His reply:
“Well, it tells me first of all that the poll’s almost certainly wrong. It’s fundamentally different from Rasmussen. It’s fundamentally different from Zogby. It’s fundamentally different from Gallup. It’s a typical Washington Post effort to slant the world in favor of liberal Democrats.”
We've heard it before, from both sides: Democrats jump on data they don't like, Republicans do the same. The reality is that this poll, as all our work, was produced independently and with great care, including the highest possible methodological standards. And contrary to Gingrich, it happens to be in accord with most other recent good-quality surveys measuring political partisanship.
To examine Gingrich’s concern, consider the partisan self-identification reported in other recent publicly released polls rated as airworthy by ABC News standards. They range from 18 to 27 percent Republican, averaging 21 percent – almost precisely the same as our estimate.
Party ID
Dem Rep Ind
ABC/Post 10/18 33% 20 42
CBS 10/8 33 22 45
AP/GfK 10/5 33 21 26
Ipsos/McClatchy 10/5 33 19 48
Gallup 10/4 33 27 38
Pew 10/4 34 23 37
NBC/WSJ 9/20 31 18 43
Another place to look is at our own ABC/Post polls this year, to see if our 20 percent estimate is an outlier. Not: Per the table below, it’s almost identical to the 21 percent Republican self-identification in our last poll, and very near the 23 percent average we’ve seen across our polls this year:
ABC/Post: Party ID
Dem Rep Ind
10/18/09 33% 20 42
9/12/09 32 21 43
8/17/09 35 25 34
7/18/09 33 22 41
6/21/09 35 22 37
4/24/09 35 21 38
3/29/09 36 25 33
2/22/09 36 24 34
1/16/09 35 23 36
‘09 Mean 34 23 38
Nor is this out of pattern with the long-term trend in political partisanship in this country. After nearly a generation of gradual advance, the Republican Party in 2003 attained parity with the Democrats; on average that year, for the first time in our polling since 1981, equal numbers of Americans identified themselves as Democrats and as Republicans, 31 percent apiece.
But that trend since has been disrupted. In response to the war in Iraq and the increasingly unpopular presidency of George W. Bush, Republican self-identification has been declining since 2003. (It’s no coincidence that Republicans in 2008 made up their smallest share of the electorate since 1980.) The dire news for the GOP in party ID since 2004 is nothing new; we’ve been reporting it steadily the past five years. Here’s our chart:
Gingrich went on in his remark to KSL to talk about the generic horse race, measuring respondents’ preference for the Democratic or Republican candidate in their congressional district. Our result found a Democratic advantage of 51-39 percent. Gingrich again:
“As of last week Gallup shows Republicans ahead by 2 points generically in terms of who do you want to vote for Congress next year. Which was the biggest improvement, I think we gained 10 or 12 points in the last nine months. So unless something truly remarkable has happened – maybe winning the Nobel Prize for doing nothing has dramatically improved the popularity of the Democrats, but I doubt it. I think this poll was deliberately rigged and produced a result that’s fundamentally false.”
Gingrich apparently misspoke, since Gallup’s latest had the Democrats +2, not the Republicans. (He didn’t source the 10- or 12-point gain he was referring to; it’s not a Gallup result.) More to the point, let’s look next at the generic ballot results in recent good-quality polls (GP signifies general public; RV, registered voters):
2010 congressional preference
Dem Rep Oth./Und. D-R gap
ABC/Post 10/18 GP 51 39 11 12
CBS 10/8 RV 46 33 21 13
Gallup 10/4 RV 46 44 10 2
F&M Coll. 9/21 RV 43 30 27 13
Bloomberg 9/14 GP 40 32 28 8
There’s some variation here, for example in undecideds (a function of polling technique rather than a measure of actual indecision). But to dismiss our result as an outlier seems rather a stretch.
Gingrich made some slightly toned-down comments in a later interview with Steven Portnoy of ABC News Radio: “I really do think there’s a substantial challenge about your poll. It doesn’t fit Zogby, Rasmussen, Gallup, and I think it’s probably going to turn out to be an outlier. My guess is that the generic right now is very close.”
It’s hardly uncommon for political figures to try to spin data their way. Just about a year ago, on Nov. 1, 2008, asked about an ABC/Post poll that showed him trailing Barack Obama by 53-44 percent, John McCain said: “The first thing I can say is the ABC News poll has been the most wrong just about of any that I’ve seen. Our poll shows closure and an increase in undecided voters. It all depends on the turnout model that you’re talking about. Americans are shifting our way. All of the polls, with the exception of a couple like ABC, show us closing.”
Our final pre-election poll two days later likewise had the race at 53-44 percent. The next day McCain lost the election by 53-46 percent.
I’ve seen a stack of comments like McCain’s over the years. Political pushback is part of the game; inquiries about our methodology, questionnaires and analysis are welcome, and comparisons to other quality data often help. Far more rare are accusations of outright fabrication, such as Gingrich leveled today. They raise pushback to a new level, and an unfortunate one.
October 20, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (20)
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That is one of the eternal verities of political polling - whoever is on the downside of a poll is going to accuse you of cooking the books. Usually they just criticize your methodology or sampling or coverage or questionnaire but cruder commentators accuse you of direct bias.
Posted by: Leo | Oct 20, 2009 5:23:50 PM
Why not ask how many are conservatives? Everyone who is burning through the Country's money need to go. Democrate or Republican.
Posted by: Jean | Oct 20, 2009 5:24:41 PM
"NBC/WSJ 9/20 31 18 43"
The WSJ - a sister company to FoxNews - pegs the Republican identification at even lower than the ABC poll. Based on the real fact, the poll looks legitimate.
The argument that the reason Republicans are polling lower is because many have jumped ship to a real conservative 'independent' status (who will never vote Democrat) is legitimate, but Newt is clearly just using the baseless huffing and puffing strategy in his remarks.
Posted by: jhw539 | Oct 20, 2009 5:36:33 PM
A link to ABC's actual questionnaire, sampling methodology, crosstabs and any other published information would have been nice. The right wingers wouldn't bother to look, but some of us like digging up the data to poke fun at their blindness to reality occasionally. (Although ultimately the poll that matters takes place in November of even years.)
Posted by: jhw539 | Oct 20, 2009 5:40:04 PM
What is so bad about not being a Republican? I used to be..now I am an Independent, just like Lou Dobbs. He's right. Neither party is doing the job. As Oklahoma's former Rep JC Watts said, gridlock is the only product Congress can produce with any accuracy. Naw, Demos once in a while do something right, then they do something stupid. Then Republicans have good ideas, then they get greedy - NOPE. Obama? Transparency? This gets scarier by the hour. C'mon gang..who is kidding whom? And finally, why is Gibson still there after the Palin inquisition?
Posted by: Roger Fulton | Oct 20, 2009 6:03:16 PM
I hate politics!! they never do what they set out to do and now we are in a real pickle, no jobs. Many corporations are sending jobs overseas, every thing is now made in China. No work in the U.S.A and we are bucking 10% unemployment.
The recent mortgage bailouts will no doubt fail again due to job losses which in turn will cause more bankruptcy. It's not over yet! Not by a long shot. So much money wasted. So much stupidity.
We are going to be in this mess for years and our poor kids will be paying forever to get our country out of debt. All from greed.
Posted by: Sharon | Oct 20, 2009 7:02:28 PM
Moreover, Rasmussen is said to weight his data by party ID.
This means that his poll didn't actually FIND there were so many respondents by party groups.
It means that Rasmussen, himself, decided how many he THINKS were Dems, GOPs, and Indies there were.
Newt. Disregard the Rasmussen numbers.
Posted by: NickP | Oct 20, 2009 7:23:40 PM
Nick, I think you've got that backwards. Rasmussen collects party affiliation then weights the remainder of the data using the party affiliation. Doing it the way you suggest wouldn't be numerically stable: it would eventually show 110 percent Democratic (since that's the larger to start.)
Posted by: Charlie Martin | Oct 20, 2009 8:05:16 PM
Gary, you're making the argument that your polling method is consistent, but not that it's accurate. How does it compare with actual registrations, and how do you account for the relative accuracy of actual measurements (votes) versus Rasmussen?
What's more, a little calculation shows that the variance of the Democrat numbers is 0.69, while the variance of the Republican values is 7.67, and the variance of the Independent numbers is 44.4. Obviously, these are different samples and different methodologies, but such a high variance makes the whole notion that these are comparable rather suspect.
I'm afraid your argument isn't very convincing.
Posted by: Charlie Martin | Oct 20, 2009 8:26:22 PM
Sorry, your argument does not make sense. The facts are that your polling over weighted the poll in favor of Democrats by such a large margin that your poll is bogus to be kind. Facts are facts and ABC needs to stop being in the tank for the Obama or they will lose all credibility. Oh I forgot, you already have.
Posted by: james | Oct 20, 2009 8:53:21 PM
Charlie, you've got it all wrong.
From the Rasmussen website:
"Rasmussen Reports determines its partisan weighting targets through a dynamic weighting system that takes into account the state’s voting history, national trends, and recent polling in a particular state or geographic area."
Voting history seems out of date,
You say: "Rasmussen collects party affiliation then weights the remainder of the data using the party affiliation." That is a circular argument. Collect party ID and then weight by party ID. Huh?
Please be more specific.
Posted by: NickP | Oct 20, 2009 9:32:08 PM
I have watching ABC News for 50 years and I have never known it to be anything other then fare. Newt just can't take it. One of the reasons is his right wing of the party stinks, nobody likes them. Well ABC maybe you should have just put in some different numbers for Newt and his right wing nut's. Thank you
R. N. Utoft
Mpls. Mn.
Posted by: Russ | Oct 21, 2009 2:18:08 AM
Sorry, but your poll is bogus! There are tens of thousands of Conservatives who switched to Independent to send a message to George Bush and the Republican Party that they no longer represented true Conservatives. You can bet we will never vote for a LIBERAL and will go back to the Republican Party when they get their act together.
Posted by: Sunnyr | Oct 21, 2009 4:21:21 AM
I, also do think the spike in independents are from people that identify with being 'conservative' and will vote conservative 'regardless of party.
The far left Dems that are just 'wee weeing' themselves at the low GOP numbers had better look closer at those numbers or they will be in for more disappointment come 2010 and 2012 than just the election of a the first FAILED black president. Why couldn't they have elected the first black man the the office that could really DO a good job?
Wow this will be blamed on Bush and the GOP too?
I wonder if the Dems and far left have realized it yet, that the new INDEPENDENTS don't care that much if you bash the GOP or Bush and the Dems look foolish and are wasting their energy.
If the Dems and far left could ACCOMPLISH things OF VALUE they wouldn't have to BLAME ANYONE. But that is the far left since the 60s. Blame other people and when you get in power make a mess of things (the more local you get the worse it can get). The idea is you look good if you make the other guy look bad. Yup hows that working for the white house?
I thought so.
Posted by: David from WI | Oct 21, 2009 6:05:08 AM
You may be distorting the facts, but the way you report them makes a big difference. In this case, you had the option of 1) saying that the Republicans have lost ground, 2) saying that the Democrats have maintain fairly constant support, or 3) saying that Independents have gained ground. We are registered (NYS) Conservatives - who are disenchanted with the Republican party in the wake of John McCain's dismal showing in the last election. With your question, we would probably say we are Independents - and Republicans would lose 2 supporters.
Posted by: Noisefree | Oct 21, 2009 7:44:26 AM
I doubt most of the new independents are disenchanted Republican conservatives. Some are, but many more were disgusted by Bush arrogance, incompetence, cronyism, hawkishness, and ignorance. They see the GOP in lockstep -- no free thought or action within their party, all decisions made high up and far right. Most voted Democratic last time around and will continue to do so until the GOP returns to the mainstream. That may mean a return to true conservatism in fiscal and international affaris. But there has to be a positive GOP agenda of some kind, not the pandering fear-and-hate campaigns they've been running recently.
Posted by: Mim Song | Oct 21, 2009 8:19:34 AM
I am certainly no big fan of polls. Generally, they just take the temperature of how people feel at that certain moment in time, and that can't be accurate for the big picture. However, when multiple polls show the same trends over an extended peiod of time, one must inevitably bow to their accuracy. The GOP still hasn't learned their lesson.
Posted by: DaveM | Oct 21, 2009 10:22:51 AM
The backlash on the GOP, makes almost anything written about them, unreliable, at this time.
Everyone from Obama on down, wants to keep talking about Bush, and no one wants to talk about Obama.
Well, Bush is over and done, and in fact the congress has now been Dem for 2 1/2 yrs. So, they can blame Bush all they want, but I know the truth to be.....the Dems are not doing much of anything, and the public is getting tired of waiting.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | Oct 21, 2009 4:26:26 PM
Perhaps the real issue, is that identifying with either of the major political parties, actually labels you as a blind follower, instead of a free thinker.
It is time for Americans to demand more from government, than we are getting, from either of the political parties.
We need more parties, to dilute the power of these power mongering parties we have now, and to try and find some candidates who are serious about doing good for citizens, instead of lining their own pockets.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | Oct 23, 2009 9:04:32 AM
The Republicans are not meeting the needs of its party members. (yes, I'm a Republican conservative leaning toward becoming an independent) They seem to embrace Rush Limbaugh instead of distancing themselves from him and other extremists like him. Newt is a very visible spokesperson for the party but how can anyone respect a man that dumped his wife for someone else while she was in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. We don't need jerks like that at the top of the party. Get some people in with common sense, people that are in touch with what the party members need and want in leadership. People criticized Palin but she was a breath of fresh air. When I think of Republicans, I think of wealthy, stodgy old men in an exclusive club oblivious to the world around them. We need fresh air, we need youth. Otherwise the party will continue to wither away.
Posted by: GrannyS | Oct 23, 2009 6:54:40 PM
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