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Polling Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 12, 2017 31 Comments
Mark Penn, Democrat strategist and former pollster for Bill Clinton during his presidency, is reviled by today's regressive Democrats.  Happily, his truth bombs land amongst his leftist audience with a fizzle amid looks of scathing disdain. Penn's latest attempt to speak truth to the left's waning political power addresses why, as co-director of the Harvard-Harris Poll, he believes that the left is still getting everything wrong, particularly when it comes to polls and President Trump.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 13, 2017 19 Comments
If we judged elections that are over a year (congressional midterms) and three years (presidential) away based on current approval ratings and popularity polling, Donald Trump would seem done for. Indeed, that is the prevailing media narrative. Though there was a recent blip upward, Trumps favorability and job approval numbers are poor. Here is a chart of Trump's job approval ratings from 538 based on a composite of all polls:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on May 03, 2017 13 Comments
New polling data suggests that there's a silent majority of millennials (those aged 18-34) who ardently support both free speech and religious freedom. The Fund for American Studies conducted the poll and found that contrary to what seems like a never-ending stream of headlines touting millennial love of safe spaces, hatred for ideological and social diversity, and affinity towards homogenized speech might not be telling the whole story. The survey "measures how Americans define freedom and whether they generally support “more” or “less” government interference in their daily lives."

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on April 28, 2017 16 Comments
As we consider the flood of polls proclaiming that President Trump's approval numbers are lower than those of any other president at this point in his presidency, a former Clinton pollster and current co-director of the  Harvard-Harris Poll takes issue with the majority of political polls' methodology. Mark Penn, writing at the Hill, refers to the problem as a "polling bubble" that involves both polling entities and the media.  He pinpoints three reasons for the unreliability of polls about Trump:  polls directed at "all adults," polls focused on sensationalized "stories," and participants' unwillingness to be honest about their views.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on April 11, 2017 13 Comments
Polling conducted by Gallup earlier this year found that the number of Democrats "extremely" or "very proud" to be American is down by eleven percentage points compared to similar polling last year. There's been little change in patriotic sentiment for those self-identifying as either Republican or Independent. Gallup first conducted the poll in 2001.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on March 22, 2017 9 Comments
Rather than focus on Gorsuch's judicial qualifications and whether he would interpret and apply the law aptly, Democratic Senators on the Judiciary Committee have chosen to spend their allotted time prodding Gorsuch's political beliefs. There seems to be universal confusion in the Democratic camp about the role of the judiciary, and instead, Gorsuch has been questioned as though he would serve as an extension of the legislative branch.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 12, 2017 4 Comments
For several years we have been examining Gallup and Pew surveys of attitudes among Americans of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. What we have seen is a trend of overall support for Israel reaching all-time or near-all-time highs. At the same time, there is a slice of the population in which the support has been slipping -- the left-wing of the Democratic Party. That makes sense based on a number of trends we post about unrelated to polling: The intensive global push, particularly on campuses, to demonize Israel; "intersectionality" theory which makes Israel the central antagonist in the racial and identity politics of the progressive movement; the identification of Israel with capitalism which increasingly itself is demonized among the socialist-friendly section of the Democratic Party that supported Bernie Sanders.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 07, 2016 108 Comments
This race is too close to call. A shift in any state could change the outcome. The Real Clear Politics No-Toss Ups map (Featured Image) has Hillary winning by a few electoral points. She could win by a few, lose by a few, or win by a lot. It's that volatile. Overall, she's up about 3% in national polls. You can't ignore that. I'd rather be up 3 than down 3 any day.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 19, 2016 30 Comments
As we approach the final presidential debate later tonight, the polling looks grim for Donald Trump. In a sense, Trump never really recovered from his post Democratic convention fall, when his public feud with the Khan family wasted what had been a Trump rally after the Republican convention. There was a rebound for a couple of weeks, as Trump maintained uncharacteristic composure and relative silence as Hillary's email and other scandals took a toll. But all of that went down the tubes as Trump took the bait on the "fat shaming" allegation after the first debate. Does ANYONE even remember the woman's name at this point? She was just a Clinton prop used to set up what was to come, the NBC tape of comments about groping women and the rollout of a series of women accusing Trump of groping them in some form or another.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 14, 2016 32 Comments
There are varying levels of horrible results for conservatives in the upcoming election. Based on current polling, it certainly looks like Hillary will be the next president. You can argue whether that is better or worse than the alternative for conservatives, but there is no serious argument that losing either the House or the Senate is horrible. In the case of the Senate, it will pave the way for Hillary to push through disastrous judicial nominations. And yes, expect Majority Leader Schumer to raise the nuclear option to the Supreme Court level if Democrats control the Senate by even a single (tie-breaking) vote. The Senate could go either way at present polling. But the House is what stands between conservatives and the political abyss. Think of where we would be if in the first two years of his presidency, when Obama controlled both houses of Congress, he had focused on passing a wide-ranging legislative agenda rather than focusing on Obamacare. All of the executive orders and actions that have been questioned by the courts and can be reversed by the next president would have the force of legislation. Assuming Hillary is the next president and wins in a landslide, Republican control of the House may be the last line of defense.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 09, 2016 116 Comments
Trump's now infamous "hot mic" comments while aboard an Access Hollywood tour bus have caused not only a flurry of GOP endorsement withdrawals and calls for his withdrawing from the race, but according to one poll released today, they've also prompted GOP voters to demand that the Republican party continue to support Trump. From a former RNC chair saying Trump's campaign "can't be salvaged" and Condoleezza Rice saying "Enough" and calling on Trump to resign to such disparate members of Congress as Jason Chaffetz, John Thune, Mike Lee, and John McCain withdrawing their endorsements, the political class on the Republican side has made its feelings about Trump in light of the most recent revelations quite clear. Equally clear, at this point, is that some Trump mega-donors and the majority of Trump voters want the GOP to stand by their man.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on August 29, 2016 17 Comments
One of my favorite articles not published at LI this year is the New York Times piece flummoxed by and bemoaning the fact that Obama's calls for gun control go nowhere and serve only to increase gun sales. Here's an excerpt:
More guns were sold in December [2015] than almost any other month in nearly two decades, continuing a pattern of spikes in sales after terrorist attacks and calls for stricter gun-buying laws, according to federal data released in January. The heaviest sales last month, driven primarily by handgun sales, followed a call from President Obama to make it harder to buy assault weapons after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 24, 2016 92 Comments
The current polling gives little rational reason to think Donald Trump will win in November. No matter how you slice it -- national 4-way, national head-to-head, battleground states, electoral college, unfavorability -- Trump is deeply underwater, as this polling average chart at Real Clear Politics today shows: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ The trends are not any better for Trump than the averages. The two weeks after the Republican Convention were a complete disaster for Trump, from which he has not yet recovered:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 16, 2016 78 Comments
Electoral success is looking bleak for Republican nominee Donald Trump and his supporters. Among the conventional poll-reading wisdom is that trends, not individual polls, provide for a more accurate overview. Despite his headline popularity and ability to pull around 30% in primary elections, Trump has never polled consistently well against Democratic contender Hillary Clinton.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on August 03, 2016 77 Comments
You see, this is the problem with having a campaign predicated on the fact that you're leading in all the polls -- when polling data turns unfavorable, your alleged mandate dissipates. A new poll released by Fox News shows Hillary with a double-digit lead over The Donald. Hillary might me the least trusted presidential candidate in history, but she's still crushing Trump (if data is accurate, of course).

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 14, 2016 37 Comments
Democrat presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's poll numbers have slipped after she escaped charges for her emails at the State Department. A New York Times/CBS News poll shows that 67% of voters do not find Clinton "honest and trustworthy." In a month, she lost her 6% lead over Trump in the CBS News poll, which now puts them dead even.
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