[lbo-talk] ABC polls: on the bailout, wording matters; Obama strongly in lead as Palin bounce fades

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Wed Sep 24 10:10:47 PDT 2008


On Wed, 24 Sep 2008, Doug posted Gary Langer's analysis of the ABC polls:

This is great poll analysis in both senses -- it's very well done, and almost the news is good. And lots of that good news is surprising. But I just want to highlight two tidbits in re the discussion of that Stanford analysis that AP sent around:

<http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/story?id=5866046&page=1>

<snip>

[First tidbit:]


> In a related challenge, concern about the candidates' age is up -- 48
> percent, a new high, call it an important factor in their vote, and it
> hurts McCain: Those who call it important favor Obama by 2-1, 63-32
> percent, compared with a 12-point McCain advantage among those who don't
> see his age as an issue.
>
> Far fewer -- 16 percent, a new low -- say race is an important issue,
> and that view does not meaningfully impact vote preferences.

[Second tidbit:]


> Among likely voters, Obama's winning 77 percent of Democrats and
> Democratic-leaning independents who'd supported Hillary Clinton for the
> nomination. That hasn't changed, but nonetheless among all leaned
> Democrats Obama's got 88 percent support, about even with McCain's 87
> percent from leaned Republicans.

<end excerpts>

Note the trick exposed in the second one: McCain's support number usually only counts Repugs; Obama's usually counts both Dem and Indies. It's no wonder it's 10% lower.

Michael



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