Posts tagged polling

Why Your Professor Supports Gay Marriage (and Other Revelations)

November 18, 2008 · Filed under Columbia University, Election 2008, LGBT Issues · Tagged , , , , , , ,

This originally appeared in the Commentariat, Columbia Spectator’s opinion blog.

In one of my previous posts, I asserted that professors and the highly-educated were liberal because progressive ideas were inherently better, and vice-versa. Clearly, as some have pointed out, this is, to a degree, complete nonsense for a variety of reasons. In fact, one of the problems I should point out with the studies that I cited is that they do not distinguish between social liberalism and economic liberalism. I would venture to say that, while many Columbia students are fairly economically liberal (that is, they believe in economic regulation, the New Deal, and so on to varying degrees), you’d be pretty hard-pressed to find a Huckabee supporter.

Anyway it’s time for an actual explanation of why professors are so liberal, part one.

The Republican-Democratic divide requires a closer look.

Columbia University Professor of statistics Gelman wrote an article (which he later turned into a book) in which he addresses this issue. He writes that:

income matters more in “red America” than in “blue America.” In poor states, rich people are much more likely than poor people to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, but in rich states (such as Connecticut), income has a very low correlation with vote preference.

In other words, wealthy people in blue states are likely to vote Democratic while their counterparts in Republican states are likely to vote Republican. The explanation for this is that:

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The Nader Effect and 2008

October 21, 2008 · Filed under Basic Decency, Election 2008, LGBT Issues, Poll Analysis · Tagged , , , , , , ,

According to RealClearPolitics, Barack Obama has an 8.7 percent lead over John McCain. However, this is only when Ralph Nader and Bob Barr are included in the polling data. When third party candidates are excluded, however, Obama’s lead shrinks to 6.8%. There are a variety of explanations for this.

One of these explanations is simply that Bob Barr simply siphons off voters who would otherwise be voting for McCain. However, this, at least by itself, is entirely inadequate. In fact, in a partial restoration of my faith in the American people, only 1% of Americans are projected to vote for him. Nader, meanwhile, is polling at 3%. If we accept political science orthodoxy that a third-party candidate will only draw votes away from the candidate closest in ideology to them, then Obama should be ahead by around 10.7%.

I got this number by adding the 3% of Nader, which would theoretically go to Obama, and subtracting the Barr’s 1%, which would theoretically go to McCain. Whille the Libertarian Party shares views with both major parties (it is socially liberal and [very] economically conservative), this year’s candidate is ultraconservative Bob Barr of Georgia, known for his both his economically and socially conservative douchebaggery during his time in the House of Representatives (for example, he both authored and sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act. He also proposed to ban the practice of Wicca in the military and wants to repeal the 16th amendment [which instituted the income tax]).

An alternative explanation is that there are simply fewer polls, which leads to less accurate overall statistics. The problem with this, however, is that a sheer number of polls will not ensure statistical integrity. In fact, the sample sizes of most of these polls have been around 1000 likely voters. With sample sizes like this, it is rather unlikely that the margin of error will be particularly large.

On the other hand, the accuracy provided by the sample sizes might be offset by the varying definitions used for “likely voter”. Gallup has experimented with using two different designs for its “likely voter” polls. The results of one experimental poll were as follows. Among “registered voters”, Obama led McCain by 11 points. Among the traditional definition of likely voters (that is, it takes into consideration “voting intention and self-reported past voting behavior”), Obama was in the lead by 7 points. Among the expanded definition of likely voters (people who claim they will vote on election day), Obama was in the lead by 10 points. There is a problem with the assertion that the “likely voters” model is less accurate. For the registered voters in this poll, the MoE is ±2%; for the traditional LV model the MoE is ±3%; for the expanded LV model, the MoE is ±2%. In other words, the margin of error is essentially the same, but the likely voter interview is more likely to predict the outcome of the election.

Another reason to believe that the inclusive polling (i.e. with Obama, McCain, Nader, and Barr) is accurate is that it has followed the same pattern as the McCain v. Obama polling, yet only slightly delayed (because there are simply fewer inclusive polls).

The explanation that I find most credible is that Nader voters are simply people who might not otherwise vote this year. Obama’s numbers are essentially the same across the two polling methods (49.0% average in the inclusive polling versus 50.1% in non-inclusive). In fact, if you add up Obama’s and McCain’s numbers in the non-inclusive polling, there’s a missing 6.7% (presumably, “undecideds”). Given that Obama’s numbers stay the same across the polling data, yet his lead only grows when Nader and Barr are included, my hypothesis is this: while some McCain voters are willing to bite and vote for Bob Barr (either because they don’t like McCain’s social conservativism are are, in fact, libertarians, or because they don’t think he’s socially conservative enough and are simply fans of Bob Barr), Obama voters are committed to their candidate. This argument is justified by polling data which indicates that Democrats are far more excited about Obama than Republicans are about McCain. At the same time, the 6.7% of unlikely voters will split between Nader and Obama for two reasons. First, because CBS polling indicates that undecideds and independents favor Obama by wide margins. Second, because many Nader supporters have said that they simply wouldn’t vote if he weren’t on the ticket.

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Joe the Plumber and His Precious Autistic Children

October 16, 2008 · Filed under Election 2008 · Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Last night’s debate was, quite frankly, the most interesting of the presidential debates thusfar.

This was not because Obama was particularly passionate, not was it because he excelled in any particular area. Rather, the reason was that, quite frankly, John McCain came pretty close to a meltdown.

Throughout the debate, Obama remained calm and relaxed — to use the words of someone else (I can’t remember who at the moment), “cool and professional”. Though Obama has consistently kept his cool during the debates, McCain seemed to get angrier not only from debate to debate, but, last night, moment to moment. At times, his panting and sighing was audible. Even his attempts at smiling seemed mean-spirited (a friend said he “looked like a shark” when he smiled).

Most of the material of the debate was old hat — in fact, some of the exact same lines were used in the last debate — but there was some new material. McCain brought in Ayers and the ACORN scandal, something he avoided last time (perhaps in a failed attempt not to seem like a dick?), but it wasn’t a major theme of the debate, and Obama dealt with both issues deftly and calmly. Overall, there wasn’t really any new, interesting material to be uncovered. So that brings us to style and rhetoric.

Here is where it gets interesting. John McCain was trying to capitalize on Sarah Palin’s folksiness, apparently, but failed miserably. Where he tried to be folsky, he was condescending. An undecided voter interviewed by CNN afterwards said that she found McCain’s storytime — a power so well-used by Reagan (too bad he used it for evil) — while touching the first time around, to be “gimmicky” by the third or fourth time. When McCain brought out “Joe the Plumber” my friends, with whom I was watching the debate, all started yelling at the TV.

One friend mentioned something that I hadn’t thought of, however: McCain was being male-normative. “What the fuck, John?! I’m not Joe!” she shouted. This, of course, was true. The Mac, who — according to CNN live-ratings — was pretty much despised by undecided women throughout the debate, most likely did not benefit from this. This is an age in which Americans need to feel “connected” to their president, and McCain failed horribly at this.

Working-class people, as well, I’m sure, didn’t appreciate John McCain’s discussion of Joe the Quarter-Million-Dollar-Plumber, either.

And speaking of condescension, let’s talk about the “precious autistic children”. Actually…that wasn’t really condescending, that was just creepy. Am I right, or am I right?

In fact, to prove my point, here’s a quote from an article about a CBS poll:

Debate watchers who thought Obama won the debate thought he was a better communicator and has a better grasp of the problems the country has to face. Some used words like “eloquent” and “confident” to describe him. In contrast, some said McCain was defensive and spent too much time attacking Obama – using words like “rude,” “mean,” and “caustic” to describe McCain’s performance in the debate.

By contrast, it seems that most people who thought that McCain won did not have problems with Obama’s character but were either “impressed by [McCain's] experience” or “concerned that Obama’s solutions all required spending money”. This indicates — to me at least — a less fundamental problem for Obama.

Sorry if this post is a little less than coherent at the moment, I just got back from (yet another) midterm, and I’m a little dazed.

Anyway, overall I’d call the debate a tie, if not a marginal win for Obama. But really, all Obama had to do in this debate was tie it, given the lead he’s already established. On the other hand, I’m beginning to be a little concerned with his dipping poll numbers: two days ago, RealClearPolitics had him with an 8.2% lead, yesterday it was 7-something, and today it’s down to 6.9%. If the Democrats want a Senate that can actually do something, they need to reach 60, and the only feasible way for them to do that is to get new senators coming in on Obama’s coattails. It’s now or never, really, because — if he wins — I doubt he’ll have the same power come re-election.

EDIT: Just some quick polls regarding the debate: CBS has a poll of uncommitted voters which has Obama winning the debate with 53% to McCain’s 22%. (25% said it was a draw.) According to this poll, both candidates gained favor among voters, but Obama simply gained by larger margins (overall, that is). Another website has already gathered the polling data for me. A CNN poll has Obama winning with 58%, John McCain winning at 31%. It also has McCain’s favorability rating dropping from 51% to 49%. However, Politic/Insider Advantage gives a much narrower lead to Obama with a 49%-46% split, so there’s clearly some wiggle-room here. We’ll see what happens, I suppose.

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Not Quite Color-Blind, But Not Quite Racist

October 15, 2008 · Filed under Basic Decency, Election 2008, Poll Analysis · Tagged , , , , ,

So I was reading another blog and came across this comment (by the way, the guy who writes it is pretty incredible. I know I have like negative readers, but I’m going to plug him anyway.) The comment brought to mind a Gallup Poll which says,

6% of voters say they are less likely to vote for Barack Obama because of his race, 9% say they are more likely to vote for him, making the impact of his race a neutral to slightly positive factor when all voters’ self-reported attitudes are taken into account.

Perhaps because African-Americans have been traditionally Democratic (as a demographic they trend about 80+% Democratic) the Obama campaign didn’t see a bump similar to that received by John F. Kennedy for being Catholic. Before the 1960 election, the Catholic community was largely split (mostly on the basis of class, with working-class Catholics voting Democratic and wealthier Catholics voting Republican). But when Kennedy ran, he brought millions of Catholic voters to the Democratic side, at least for that election. In the years since then, of course, Catholics have become decreasingly Democratic as a whole (largely, it is likely, because of the new salience of social issues in American politics). Obviously, Kennedy’s religion was a big factor, with many Americans worried that the United States would be controlled by the Pope if he won. As history has shown, this was not the case. So, of course, there were many Americans who voted for Nixon on that basis. But then, there were millions of Americans who voted for him on that basis as well.

In the same way, millions of non-white (the Gallup Organization polled on the basis of white/non-white, because apparently Latino/as and African-Americans must have the same opinion of an African-American candidate.) voters have flocked to Obama (polling show that around 13% percent are more likely to vote for Obama) where as around 7% of white voters say they will be less likely to vote for him because of his race. Taken as is, this would approximately equalize (“non-whites” make up about one in three people in the United States, I believe, so the ratio would be 2 white: 1 non-white). However, there are also the 6% of white people who are more likely to vote for Obama based on his race, perhaps as a means by which to parade their tolerance. This, of course, is not offset by the 4% of non-whites who are less likely to vote for Obama because of his race (my guess is this is the produce of African-American-Latino racial/ethnic tensions, since I can’t really imagine all that many African-Americans being turned off by an African-American candidate simply because of his race).

In the end, it seems, polling would indicate Barack Obama may actuall benefit from being an African-American in this presidential race. However, given how unacceptable racism is in today’s society (though those disinclined to vote for him because of his race might claim they aren’t racist, they, quite frankly, are) it is possible that fewer people intend to vote for Obama than say they will. Of course, the Bradley Effect was first observed 26 years ago, during the Regan administration, and when the subject was only ahead in some polls. All three factors have changed.

First, it is now 2008. and there have been several indications that the effect has diminished, especially in recent years. While the examples I cite can also be found on Wikipedia, I’ll recite them here anyway. In Louisiana, Bobby Jindal (R), an Indian-American, ran and lost in 2003. While early polling had indicated he had a lead, pre-election polling showed that his lead had disappeared prior to the election. In 2006, Harold Ford, Jr., ran for senator of Tennessee and lost in a close race. Polling showed, however, that, despite not exactly being a historical bastion of tolerance, his loss was not the result of massive lying by white people to pollsters. I think, however, that we should all keep an eye out for a similar effect, especially in Southern and Southwestern states, on LGBT candidates in the future, just as soon as people stop shooting them.

I think I’ll skip my second point, largely due to the fact that I am lazy and don’t quite want to wade into the issue of massive Republican implicit racism, though I think anyone who watched the GOP national convention this year, or any year prior, will have noticed by now that there are about four black people in the entire crowd (and how much do you want to bet they’re half-white?).

Third, while the subject of the original Bradley effect was only ahead in some polls, Barack Obama has the lead in every single poll, and a statistically significant lead in all of them as well.

So, given all of this evidence, and given the recent Gallup polling that shows that Obama may, in fact, benefit from being the first African-American major-party candidate for President, I think–and hope–that the Bradley Effect is a thing of the past.

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