Category Archives: Polls

2020 General Election, Polls

“No matter what happens, I will find a way to say, ‘I told you so. That’s how probabilities work.'”

Last weekend I found myself asking: What am I supposed to make of Five Thirty Eight’s 10 out of 100 probability that Trump will win? A Trump victory is a possibility, right, just like the 30 out of 100 probability (or whatever it was) in 2016? The numbers suggest precision (a result of complicated behind the scenes modeling of data of uncertain reliability) and also that there’s a significant difference between the numbers (10 or 30 or something else). But what difference could this make for me? What’s the point?

Joshua Keating (“The Problem Isn’t That the Polls Were Wrong. It’s That They Were Useless”) addresses my befuddlement like so:

It’s not all that comforting to Democrats today to know that 9 out of 10 times this election happens in the greater multiverse, Biden will win it. As former FiveThirtyEight writer Mona Chalabi put it, assuming the voice of FiveThirtyEight’s much-derided Fivey Fox mascot, “No matter what happens, I will find a way to say ‘I told you so! That’s how probabilities work!’ ”

I see.

2020 Democratic Primary, Polls

Would Elizabeth Warren lead Democrats to victory or spoil their prospects in 2020?

“Tall and wiry, Warren visibly thrums with good cheer. She’s got that kind of pert friendliness stretched taut around a core of steel that some foreigners find confusing in certain willful Americans. But in Warren, both the chipper facade and the steel guts feel genuine: She is a very nice lady who will put up with exactly zero bullcrap.” —  Julia Ioffe, “The Summer of Warren.”

Five months ago, Markos Moulitsas approvingly quoted a Daily Kos reader, Fatherflot, who described Elizabeth Warren’s attempt to distinguish herself from Hillary Clinton with this observation:

Instead of the aloof insider-technocrat, she is promoting herself as a kind of “Mary Poppins” figure — the cheerful, exuberant, uber-competent woman who simply gets things done and makes everyone feel included and proud.

Sounds good to me, but then I fit the demographic profile of a Warren supporter. College educated white liberal who lives in solid blue California. My first vote for president was for George McGovern. I am a Democrat first and foremost because of my conviction that the economy should not be stacked against middle- and working-class Americans.

Warren is my first choice for president. But should I be scared away? As Warren’s polling numbers increase, a number of Wall Street executives are in near-panic because she might win the presidency (“From corporate boardrooms to breakfast meetings, investor conferences to charity galas, Ms. Warren’s rise in the Democratic primary polls is rattling bankers, investors and their affluent clients, who see in the Massachusetts senator a formidable opponent who could damage not only their industry but their way of life.”), while Democrats are voicing alarm that she is taking stands, most especially her uncompromising embrace of Medicare for All, that could ensure her defeat. Jonathan Chait is typical of this group of Democrats: “If Warren wants to beat Trump, she needs to ditch Bernie’s health-care plan and come up with one that doesn’t have political poison pills.” (Chait’s observation came before Warren doubled down with her written plan to pay for Medicare for All.)

Recent polling serves to increase Democratic anxieties. Medicare for All is popular among Democratic activists; it is unpopular among registered voters. (I have opposed Medicare for All on both policy and political grounds – at least in the foreseeable future.)

Chart from Thomas Edsall, “Democrats Can Still Seize the Center.” Numbers from Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, “U.S. Voters Support Expanding Medicare but Not Eliminating Private Health Insurance.”

In recent polling, among Democratic voters, 63% supported Medicare for All. Among all registered voters, 56% opposed it.

Warren is a persuasive advocate – in a classroom or before a live audience in Iowa. (The house lights are on when she speaks: “I don’t want to be in a theater where I’m on stage and the audience is in the dark. This is not a performance, this is a chance to engage, for all of us in the room to think about what’s happening to our country, to our lives, and I need to see faces when I’m talking through that.”) But as the campaign transitions from retail to wholesale, and the Republican noise machine trains its focus on the one Democrat left standing, Medicare for All is going to be a very hard sell (and Warren seems to be digging in, rather than anticipating a pivot during the general election).

And then there’s this:

From Nate Cohn, New York Times.

There is a full year before Election Day, and a lot can change. Ms. Warren is an energetic campaigner. She could moderate her image or energize young and nonwhite voters, including the millions who might not yet even be included in a poll of today’s registered voters. Mr. Biden could lose the relatively conservative voters who currently back him; the president could be dealt irreparable political damage during the impeachment process.

But on average over the last three cycles, head-to-head polls a year ahead of the election have been as close to the final result as those taken the day before. The stability of the president’s approval rating is a reason to think this pattern might hold again for a fourth cycle, at least for the three leading and already well-known Democrats tested in these polls.

What Democrats make of this picture is undoubtedly in the eye of the beholder. As I think of Joe Biden’s performance to date, his marginal polling advantage a year out doesn’t make me more likely to support him in the primary. I’d rather put my faith in Elizabeth Warren’s skill at communicating with conviction a message for working Americans.

Jonathan Chait, who is clearly worried about Warren, nonetheless acknowledges her skill set: “She is a compelling orator with a sympathetic life story and a gift for explaining complex ideas in simple terms. Yet she has spent most of the last year positioning herself as if the general election will never happen. At the moment, I’d feel very nervous betting the future of American democracy on Warren’s ability to defeat Trump. But a lot can change in a year, and it’s not hard to imagine the Warren of 2020 as a potent challenger.”

I’m not one to panic. But I certainly recall the jolt of Trump’s victory. The week before election day in 2016, I was reassuring my friends that Hillary Clinton would win by sending them this confident tweet from David Plouffe:

“Clinton path to 300+ rock solid. Structure of race not affected by Comey’s reckless irresponsibility. Vote and volunteer, don’t fret or wet.” — 11:05 am – 30 October 2016

I wasn’t a worrier – not until about the time the polls were closing in California (when I first tuned-in to TV coverage). There had been too many reassurances from Plouffe (and many others) throughout the months preceding that tweet. I’m part of the reality-based community. I was too well-informed to fret or wet.

I’m still not a worrier. I have no trouble envisaging a Democratic victory – 12 months hence – no matter who is nominated. Time will tell.

In the meantime, as a Californian, it doesn’t much matter what I think. Not yet. In 2020, as in so many previous elections, caucus goers in Iowa and primary voters in New Hampshire are going to shape or reshape the race. I was on board with Obama and Clinton before Iowa in 2008 and 2016, respectively. In the years before that, I was as often annoyed, rather than pleased by the choices of Democrats in those early states.

For now, I can only wait and watch.

(Image by Mary Shepard circa 1934.)

Democrats, Income Inequality, Polls, Republicans

Poll: A majority of Americans support raising the top tax rate to 70 percent

The media’s favorite democratic socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – sorry, Bernie Sanders – has proposed raising the marginal tax rate on income above $10 million to 70%. (That’s where it was when Ronald Reagan was elected; it was 28% when Reagan left office.)

It turns out that most voters agree with the Congresswoman from the Bronx:

In the latest The Hill-HarrisX survey, which was conducted Jan. 12 and 13 after the newly elected congresswoman called for the U.S. to raise its highest tax rate to 70 percent, found that a sizable majority of registered voters, 59 percent, supports the idea.

…

Women support the idea by a 62-38 percent margin. A majority of men back it as well, 55 percent to 45 percent. The proposal is popular in all regions of the country with a majority of Southerners backing it by a 57 to 43 percent margin. Rural voters back it as well, 56 percent to 44 percent.

Republicans oppose the idea by 55% to 45%.

(Wikipedia photo of Reagan at home in California in 1976, four years before his election as president.)

Donald Trump, Polls, Tribalism

If it looks like a Blue Wave is coming, Republican voters will double down to suppress it

“Mr. Trump’s job approval rating rose to 45% in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the highest mark of his presidency and up 1 percentage point from June….

Underpinning Mr. Trump’s job approval was support from 88% of Republican voters. Of the four previous White House occupants, only George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had a higher approval rating within his own party at the same point in his presidency.”

Donald Trump appears to be defying gravity:

When it comes to polling, Mr. Trump has proved paradoxical.

“Welcome to the latest and most daring of Donald Trump’s high-wire acts, in which the president increases his degree of difficulty and manages yet again to stay on his feet,” said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who helped conduct the survey with Republican Bill McInturff.

These survey results point to the greatest threat to a Blue Wave election that flips the House from Republican to Democratic control in November. Wave elections are powered by the amped up enthusiasm of voters in one party and the deflated spirits of voters in the other party. Both factors contribute. (Let’s set aside for another time various definitions of ‘wave election.’ For the purposes of this post, just suppose that we’re considering something simpler: Whether or not the Democrats will retake the House in 2018. Of course a host of factors, not just emotional highs and lows, generate election victories. And a host of factors, including events that will take place between now and November 6, will influence the results this fall. Put aside these complicating factors for the purposes of this discussion.)

Donald Trump’s support is ‘paradoxical’ because, on the one hand, surveys show he is highly unpopular (“Mr. Trump’s overall approval rating continued to rank among the lowest of any modern president at this point his first term, and the poll turned up warning signals for him.”) and he persists in acting as president of a factional government: he is focused on his base (not unusual), but (unlike previous post-World War II presidents), he is making few if any moves to attract support from voters not already on board with him. Much of what he says and does appears by design to alienate folks who aren’t part of his base – which “increases his degree of difficulty,” as Yang observed.

On the other hand, focusing virtually exclusively on the base is working for him on at least one level: His support, as measured by polling, shows that he has an extremely high “own party” approval rating. (In polling at the 500-day mark, approval from his own party exceeded every previous president, going back to Truman at the beginning of the polling era, with the single exception of the 43rd president, when Americans rallied ’round the Commander in Chief following 9/11.)

Paradoxical though it may be, Trump’s strategy is to focus on riling up his base – and the way to do that is often to deliberately provoke the opposition. A headline in this morning’s Washington Post featured a quotation from Paul Ryan (on the proposal to revoke security clearances of Trump critiques). Said the Speaker of the House: “I think he’s just trolling people.”

I agree. I believe this is a deliberate strategy. Like the popular campaign chant, “Lock her up!” (which Jeff Sessions heard and repeated this morning while addressing a crowd of conservatives), this is another case of trashing longstanding institutional and governing norms. And that’s the point: Trump vents, critics jump, and his base rallies behind him.

The result – as the Wall St. Journal/NBC News poll suggests – is an extraordinary level of support from the GOP base, at a time of general presidential unpopularity. This is something we haven’t seen before.

Republicans are doggedly sticking with Trump, even as his overall approval numbers are at historic lows.

There have been mixed signals regarding the likelihood that we are heading into a wave election, or even a more modest result that will bring a Democratic majority to Congress.

All kinds of things can – and will – happen between now and election day, but at this stage, the greatest threat to Democrats flipping the House is the possibility of sky high Republican turnout for an unpopular and divisive president.

November 21, 2018 update: Donald Trump succeeded in generating the “sky high Republican turnout” I referenced in this post. But there just weren’t enough of them to hold back the Blue Wave: “Trump’s Base Isn’t Enough.”

Donald Trump, Polls, Republicans, Tribalism

The President sided with the enemy and his base stuck with him

“To state it baldly: the United States was attacked and the President sided with the enemy in his Helsinki remarks.”

This observation, by John McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and its former Acting Director, followed an extraordinary week of U.S. diplomacy and unprecedented conduct by an American president.

McLaughlin served in the CIA under seven presidents, from Richard Nixon through George W. Bush (including Ronald Reagan, pictured above at the Berlin Wall). He spoke in a thoughtful, low-key manner. By all appearances he is hardly prone to making questionable claims or besmirching American presidents.

It’s unlikely that many avid supporters of President Trump heard his remarks, because he made them during an interview on MSNBC (“The 11th Hour with Brian Williams,” July 20, 2018). This circumstance, along with the fact that he was voicing criticism of the President, makes it likely that Trump’s base would discredit the observation – never mind McLaughlin’s 30 years of public service in U.S. intelligence.

An Axios/Survey Monkey poll asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Trump handled his press conference with Putin?”

Although only 40% of respondents expressed approval, among Republicans 79% approved.

A Washington Post-ABC poll taken several days later asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Trump handled his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week?” and recorded these results: 33% approval overall, but 66% among Republicans.

A second question, “Overall do you think Trump went too far in supporting Putin, not far enough, or handled this about right?” While 40% said too far, only 14% of Republicans agreed.

(It’s possible that strong criticism from Congressional Republicans and other GOP leaders – between the two polls – dampened the enthusiasm of grassroots Republicans.)

What’s going on? Ronald Reagan, the perennial icon of Republicanism, is widely credited with winning the Cold War against “the Evil Empire.” Among Republican elites – with only an exception or two, such as California’s Representative Dana Rohrabacher – revanchist Russia, circa 2018, is hardly more trusted than was the U.S.S.R. Have Republican voters had any reason – apart from taking a cue from Trump – to look favorably on the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin?

Of course not. This poll reflects contemporary political tribalism. Trump voters – which include huge majorities in the mainstream Republican Party – are in his corner come what may.

In her book, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, Amy Chua writes about the human instinct to bond – and exclude – and about how groups shape who we are and how we act toward others. The group identities that people are most tightly bound to are ethnic, regional, religious, sectarian, and clan based.  Group loyalties lead people to “seek to benefit their group mates even when they personally gain nothing. They will penalize outsiders, seemingly gratuitously. They will sacrifice, and even kill and die, for their groups.”

In successive chapters on U.S. foreign policy failures (in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq), Chua looks at tribal loyalties –the ethnic Chinese vs. the Vietnamese, the Pashtuns vs. numerous other clans in Afghanistan, and Sunnis vs. Shias in Iraq – which dominated the conflicts (even when American leaders were completely oblivious to these divisions) and frustrated U.S. military, political, and economic objectives.

In each of these situations, a “market-dominant minority” – the Chinese, Pashtuns, and Sunnis, respectively – held sway over the poorer majority population, creating anger and resentment. “Market-dominant minorities are one of the most potent catalysts of political tribalism.”

The American blindness to group identities abroad is true as well of social divisions in our own country – at least it has been until recently, as political polarization has come to be a defining feature of our national life. It has become harder to overlook, especially since the election of Donald Trump in November 2016. And, as awareness of tribalism in developing countries has increased, many have seen a similar dynamic in the U.S. with rising economic inequality and a growing gap between the richest Americans and the rest of us. This picture is complicated, as Chua notes, by the existence of not one, but two white tribes in this country – on opposite sides of the cultural issues that divide us.

Much post-election analysis and discussion has focused on competing theories of the Trump vote as it relates to working class white folks (whose strong turnout in a number of states Clinton expected to win instead put Trump over the top). Was it racism or economic hardship that moved these voters?

After watching Trump’s campaign – and hearing from his voters – many have pushed back against the idea of economic distress as an explanation, as Chua observes. She writes:

“But to see the divisiveness in today’s America – and the forces that brought about Trump’s election – as solely about racism, while ignoring the role of inequality, misses too much of the picture. Even putting economics aside, it misses the role played by white-against-white resentment and antagonism.”

For the purposes of this post, we need not resolve this issue – race or economics – to conclude: tribalism, not sweet reason or logical consistency or respect for facts, has kept Trump’s base behind him – even when events have cast doubt on the measure of his loyalty and his devotion to protecting and defending our country.

July 23, 2018 update – Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll:

“Mr. Trump’s job approval rating rose to 45% in a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, the highest mark of his presidency and up 1 percentage point from June….

Underpinning Mr. Trump’s job approval was support from 88% of Republican voters. Of the four previous White House occupants, only George W. Bush, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, had a higher approval rating within his own party at the same point in his presidency.”

(Photo: Ronald Reagan speaking at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987.)

Donald Trump, Polls, Republicans

Reason to believe, reason to doubt

“Across Poplar Bluff, a struggling town of 17,000 in a remote pocket of southeast Missouri, many residents are reluctant to criticize Trump as they grapple with the prospect that their community could be one of the trade war’s first casualties,” reports Jenny Jarvie for the Los Angeles Times.

The second largest employer in this small Missouri city, Mid Continent Nail Corporation, which employs more than 500 residents, laid off 60 assembly line workers last month – a direct result of a 25% tariff on steel imports from Mexico imposed by the Trump administration.

Residents have been rattled by this turn of events, but not enough to shake their support for Trump.

A machine programmer – and Trump supporter – at the factory says, “I support him 100%. In fact, I’d like to shake his hand. He’s doing a great job.”

A 12-year employee at Mid Continent, who still supports Trump, says, “Most workers are behind Trump, no matter what.”

The president of the local chamber of commerce said, in declining to comment about the president or his trade policies, “You won’t get a lot of people speaking around here.”

While folks fear losing their jobs and perhaps their homes, they continue to credit Trump with looking at “the big picture” and doing the right thing about trade.

At a time when Trump commands the loyalty of 90% of Republicans, this is just another data point. Although his overall approval remains historically low relative to recent presidents, at the 500-day mark, Trump’s “own party” job approval rating trailed only one president – George W. Bush, following 9/11 – in Gallup polling since World War II.

Link (and larger graph): Trump’s 500-day coup of the GOP, Conservatism – Jonathan Swan, Axios

In Butler County in November 2016, Trump received 79.2% of the vote, compared to Clinton’s 17.6%. A key to Trump’s victory were a handful of campaign promises he made that conflicted with conventional conservative views (and the well-established positions of the Republican Party and its donor class). In most instances, he caved once in office – and followed Republican orthodoxy – but he hasn’t done that with free trade and U.S. manufacturing jobs. And voters in Poplar Bluff credit him for that.

Missouri is a red state. In Butler County, more than 92% of residents are white. Fewer than 12% have college degrees. The median household income is $36,302. So, voter preferences are not surprising. But in 2012, Barack Obama received a higher level of support (25.8%) in Butler County against Mitt Romney (72.5%), than did Clinton against Trump. The Democratic ticket lost 1,327 voters in 2016 compared to 4 years earlier.

It’s likely that virtually no Trump voters in Poplar Bluff could list a single Clinton pledge directly related to the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs or the economic anxieties felt in small cities and towns across the Midwest. In contrast, they remember that it was Bill Clinton who gave us NAFTA.

And virtually all remember Hillary Clinton’s statement during the campaign that half of Trump supporters were a “basket of deplorables.”

(Photo from Google Maps.)