Tag Archives: polls

Election will be decided by the Battle of the Bounces

WATERLOO, IA - SEPTEMBER 27: Voting booths are set up for early voting at the Black Hawk County Courthouse on September 27, 2012 in Waterloo, Iowa. Early voting starts today in Iowa where in the 2008 election 36 percent of voters cast an early ballot.  (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Donald J. Trump got a “bounce” out of the Republican National Convention this past week.

The RealClearPolitics average of polls tells us that Trump is in the lead by a little bit.

This week, it’s the Democrats’ turn and that party’s nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, figures to get a bounce from the convention that has nominated her.

The question then becomes: Whose bounce will be greater?

Followed by this question: Will the candidate with the bigger bounce be able to sustain it until Nov. 8?

From my perch here in the middle of Flyover Country — in the most Republican region of arguably the most Republican state in the country — my gut is telling me Clinton’s bounce will be significant once the Democratic convention is gaveled to a close.

Sure, we’ve got two more days to go before the end of this phase of the presidential election campaign. Anything can happen, I suppose.

Remember, too, that this is the most unconventional election season in anyone’s memory — as Donald Trump’s nomination by the GOP illustrates so dramatically.

Let’s just follow the bounce.

What will the polls tell us?

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Donald J. Trump has campaigned for the presidency while touting his standing in public opinion polls.

The media have followed his lead, reporting incessantly about his poll standing also while reporting on Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s poll standing as well.

Against that backdrop, I’ll offer this little bit of theory.

Whatever public opinion poll “bounce” that Trump gets from the Republican National Convention will be minimized almost immediately when the Democrats stage their conventionĀ … next week.

It’s a bit of an unusual juxtaposition, with the parties convening their conventions so close to each other.

The GOP convention got off to a raucous start today over some rules changes affecting delegate commitments, but it is concluding its first day tonight with the usual rah-rah one expects at these events.

Melania Trump delivered a fine speech supporting her husband; former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani fired the delegates up with his brand of fire and brimstone; the mother of the Benghazi victim hit Clinton hard.

Some polls are going to reflect positively for Trump once he received his party’s nomination.

Then the Democrats open their convention next week and we’re going to see the tables turned. Democrats will trot out all their applause lines, just as the Republicans have done today and will continue through the rest of the week.

The question then becomes: Will the Democrats or Republicans receive the bigger bounce once both conventions are adjourned?

My strong hunch is that theĀ amount of whatever polling lift comes to Trump will depend to a h-u-u-u-u-g-e degreeĀ on the acceptance speech the nominee delivers.

Let the horse-race … coverage … continue

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If you thought the media have done a terrible job of reporting on politics and policy — relying too heavily on polls — get ready for what’s to come.

The coverage is going to get worse.

The upcoming presidential campaign between Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Donald J. Trump is going to fill us to the brim with news about the “horse race.”

We’re going to be listening to evening news reports that will begin with coverage of the latest polls.

Trump has fed that narrative repeatedly during his amazing — and stunningly surprising — march to the GOP nomination. He takes the podium and blusters about his standing in the polls. The media cover it. Why? Because the public wants it.

Trump dismisses polls that show him trailing. He trumpets polls that show him standing tall over his fallen competitors.

And, yep, the media continue to cover it.

Look at me! I’m devoting an entire blog post to the coverage of polling in this upcoming campaign.

I’ve taken the bait. Swallowed it. Damn near choked on it, for crying out loud.

I am hoping we start paying more careful attention to what these candidates are going to say about things that matter. Policy stuff matters.

Foreign policy counts. Domestic policy affects our lives. Taxes. The environment. Economic policy. Those are the things that should have us riveted on this campaign.

They won’t. The media will continue to report on polls. Who’s up? Who’s down? Election probability will be the No. 1 topic of every news cycle — which, of course, has become a 24/7 phenomenon.

Let’s all get ready for a wild ride.

 

Media need an intervention for poll addiction

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Frank Bruni has it right.

The New York Times columnist has declared that the American media are addicted to polls. They can’t report on them enough. The issues driving the Democratic and Republican presidential primary campaigns? Who needs ’em!

We need to write about polls.

Broadcast outlets lead with them. Print media report on them constantly.

Bruni noted that during the Christmas-to-New Year break, Iowa voters were polled 11 times about their presidential preferences. The media reported on those polls dutifully.

The most hilarious element of all this is how media types keep bemoaning the fact that the media cover these campaigns like “horse races.”

I’ll admit that I am one of those who become fixated occasionally by polls.

Some of them are quite ridiculous, actually. National polls showing voter preferences between party primary candidates present one example. I’ve noted in this blog before how meaningless those polls are, given that the candidates — say, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — won’t face each other nationally; they are running state by state.

But hey, let’s poll voters nationally anyway.

Perhaps we can lay some of the blame for this fixation on Donald J. Trump, the leading GOP candidate for president. He loves polls. They’re huuuuge, as he says often . . . especially when they place him in the lead. Polls that place him behind someone else? Meaningless. They don’t count. Who cares about ’em?

Bruni notes in his essay, though, that Trump often starts his stump speeches off with results from the latest polls.

The media then report it.

I hope to hear itĀ from a major newspaper newsroom or a broadcast/cable TV studio: Stop us before we report on polls again!

Evolution, creationism? Why not both?

Problems-with-the-Creationism-vs-Science-Debate

Polls occasionally drive me a bit crazy.

Take the one discussed in a Slate.com article that says young Americans favor Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution over the belief that God created the world in six calendar days.

May we hit the pause button for a moment?

I am a Christian. I’ve read the Bible many times in my life. I know what the Bible says about how the world came to be.

I also believe that the world was populated by dinosaurs and other creatures for zillions of years before human beings made themselves known.

Thus, I believe that the two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Is it possible that God created the world and allowed it to evolve into what it has become? I believe that is precisely what occurred.

The Slate article was written by Rachel E. Gross, who it is clear to me believes exclusively in Darwin’s theory. She writes: “Now, at long last, there seems to be hope: National polls show that creationism is beginning to falter, and Americans are finally starting to move in favor of evolution. After decades of legal battles, resistance to science education, and a deeply rooted cultural divide, evolution may be poised to win out once and for all.”

She adds: “The people responsible for this shift are the young. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, 73 percent of American adults younger than 30 expressed some sort of belief in evolution, a jump from 61 percent in 2009, the first year in which the question was asked. The number who believed in purely secular evolution (that is, not directed by any divine power) jumped from 40 percent to a majority of 51 percent. In other words, if you ask a younger American how humans arose, youā€™re likely to get an answer that has nothing to do with God.”

Read the whole story here

I get the divide over how to teach science in classrooms. Fundamentalists want to teach creationism as it is written in the Bible. They also want to present evolution as just as much of a theory as creationism. This issue has been kicked around at the highest level of public education governance in many states, none more so arguably than in Texas, where we elect State Board of Education members who run for the office as politicians.

Creationism, though, is a religious doctrine. Evolution is a secular one. That doesn’t mean — to my way of thinking — that one of them is invalid.

What it means to me is that the biblical version of creation was written as a metaphor. “Days”Ā can’t beĀ measured in 24-hour increments; for that matter, it might be possible that every element of time takes on meanings that we cannot comprehend.

Does any of this discount the role that God played in creating our world? Not in the least.

As for whether we should teach creationism in our public schools alongside evolution, well, I do not believe that’s appropriate.

Creationism should be taught in places of worship, which I also believeĀ also is part of God’s plan.

Trump vs. Kelly: Round Two

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It fascinates me to no end to watch Donald Trump lash out at the media.

The leading Republican presidential candidate (depending on whose poll you believe) is going after Fox News’s Megyn Kelly yet again.

He’s chiding her for not citing a poll she once cited when his poll standing was slipping. Now that he’s back up again — for the life of me, I don’t understand this — he’s calling out Kelly for ignoring the survey data.

This begs the questionĀ about how Trump might react to media criticism in the event hell freezes actually over and he gets elected president of the United States a year from now.

What on God’s Earth is he going to do when the heat gets really, really hot and he makes a serious blunder and insults the wrong individual here at home or abroad?

And as every president since the beginning of poll-taking has observed, their approval ratings go up and down. President George H.W. Bush was at 90-plus percent approval — remember? — when he launched the Persian Gulf War and our troops kicked the invading Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

That was in early 1991; the president lost his bid for re-election the following year.

This is a strange political season. The kinds of insults and personal attacks that used to scar candidates for life now haveĀ  become the preferred method of campaigning … or so it appears.

What has become of us?

 

Trump causes fits with his poll fetish

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Donald Trump has a poll fetish that is second to none.

The Republican presidential candidate keeps harping on his standing in the polls, which might be the most fascinating measure of how unconventional a politician he truly has become.

Pols say they don’t care about polls. Not Trump. He loves ’em, especially when they show him leading the GOP pack as they have since almost the moment he entered the contest.

The New York Times, though, reports that Trump is giving hints of a possible “exit strategy” once the polls start to give way to other front runners.

Trump is no masochist, he said on “Meet the Press” not long ago, meaning that he won’t stay in the race if it becomes clear he won’t win his party’s presidential nomination.

You know, this is giving me fits.

I do not believe Trump is remotely qualified to become Leader of the Free World. On every level imaginable, he is unfit for the highest office in the land … if not the world.

His campaign has generated many more laughs than serious talking points.

However — and I don’t think I’m alone in this — I really don’t want him to exit the campaign. His insults, gaffes and remarkable intemperance are giving his Republican opponents — not to mention the rest of us — lots of grist to toss around.

Is he plotting a possible way out of this campaign?

In the longer term, probably so.

In this crazy, goofy and unpredictable campaign season, though, I’m half-hoping he stays in it for a while longer.

 

'Spunk' drives Obama's poll spike? Perhaps

Polls are fun to follow. I do so regularly.

The most interesting and authoritative poll is actually a compilation of public opinion surveys. RealClearPolitics.com compiles the results and publishes a running average of all the polls. The key subject of these polls is President Obama’s approval ratings.

Lately, they’re going up … significantly.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/01/14/obamas_new_spunk_lifted_ratings_white_house_says.html

As of this morning, the president has earned a rating of just less than 45 percent of Americans who approve of the way he’s doing his job.

Two quick points about these findings.

(1) They belie the notion that Obama’s poll numbers are “plummeting, skidding, spiraling downward” or whatever nasty verb the right-wing media keep using to describe his standing among Americans.

(2) White House aides believe the polls reflect his newfound “spunk” in dealing with the loyal opposition that now controls both legislative houses of the U.S. Congress. I agree with that, to a point. I think they reflect Americans’ continuing distrust of Congress, whose approval rating is still languishing at around 14 percent, according to RealClearPolitics’ poll average.

Juxtaposed with Congress’s dismal standing among Americans, the president is looking pretty good.

What does all this mean for the future? My strong hunch is that it means Congress needs to govern more and obstruct less. Believe it or not, view is that Americans actually want their federal government to work for them. It takes cooperation between the two governing branches — the White House and Capitol Hill.

Pay attention, folks.

 

Obama poll numbers aren't 'sinking'

Listen to the talking heads on some cable news channels, or read reports in mainstream newspapers and you get a dire picture of President Obama’s political standing.

Why, those troublesome polls show his popularity “plummeting,” “sinking,” “spiraling downward.”

Media Matters — an acknowledged left-wing media watchdog group — disagrees.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/31/obamas-approval-rating-remains-unchanged-this-y/201396

The organization points out correctly that Barack Obama’s standing among Americans has remained unchanged for the past year.

Unchanged!

His numbers are stable. They aren’t sinking or plummeting. They aren’t spiraling anywhere, let alone downward.

Why do the media keep harping on something that’s, well, untrue?

Media Matters examines some poll number averages: “According to the cumulative ratingsĀ posted daily at Real Clear Politics, which averages together an array of national polls to come up with Obama’s composite job approval rating, the president’s approval on January 1, 2014 stood at 42.6 percent. The president’s approval rating on October 30, was 42 percent. So over the course ofĀ 10 months, and based on more than one hundred poll results in 2014, Obama’s approval rating declined less than one point.”

Holy smokes! Does that constitute a president whose standing is headed straight for the dumper? I think not.

It’s interesting, too, that Media Matters isn’t targeting just the right-wing media — a favorite target — in critiquing the bogus reports of Obama’s standing. It cites mainstream media across the spectrum, even those dreaded “liberal media” outlets that supposedly can say nothing critical of the president or his friends in Congress.

The link attachedĀ is most interesting and it puts the president’s standing in a context that bears little resemblance to what the media are reporting.