http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/ 15 en-us Copyright 2008 Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:38:36 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=4.2rc4-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Gov. Sarah Palin's addition to the GOP ticket yesterday as John McCain's vice presidential pick was arguably a nod to the conservative and evangelical voters whose enthusiasm for this campaign paled next to that of Democratic nominee Barack Obama's supporters. But beyond solidifying the base, can McCain's selection bring in disaffected Democratic and independent women? Palin's introduction yesterday was framed around the idea that she was a reformer who could bring an outside Washington perspective to the job. These ideas reflect two areas in which McCain lags well behind Obama among Democratic and independent women. According to the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, just 16 percent called McCain the more optimistic candidate or the one who would do more to stand up to lobbyists and special interest groups, a tick below the 23 percent support he holds among this group. But, any attitude bonus the pick provides may be http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/women_voters_up_for_grabs.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/women_voters_up_for_grabs.html Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:38:36 -0500 John McCain and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today made their first appearance as the GOP's presidential ticket, and some have suggested the pick could attract women voters. But Republicans may need to do more than put a woman on the ticket to attract women's votes. Democrats hold a wide advantage in party identification among women, with nearly six in 10 in recent Washington Post-ABC News polling calling themselves Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, and Barack Obama has opened up a wide lead among women: In the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, he led 55 percent to 37 percent. In a June Post-ABC poll, women gave Obama a nearly 2 to 1 edge as the more trusted candidate on "issues of special concern to women." But women have not always been a Democratic group. A look at exit polling shows that while Democratic presidential caniddates have fared far better among women than http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/women_voters_the_history.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/women_voters_the_history.html Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:06:46 -0500 When Barack Obama's campaign announced that he would deliver his acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High, tickets for the event were completely snapped up by supporters a mere 24 hours after they were made available. John McCain's marquee event this week, his Friday appearance in Dayton, Ohio which is widely expected to be the first event of his weekend-long vice presidential rollout, isn't quite as highly in demand. The Dayton Daily News reports (hat tip: Political Wire) tickets for McCain's event, expected to be held in front of 10,000 supporters at the Nutter Center at Wright State University, were still available this morning. Tickets were first made available last Friday. The disparity highlights a notable trend in polling on the presidential campaign: Obama's backers are far more enthusiastic than are McCain's. The new Washington Post-ABC News poll released this week found a continuing enthusiasm gap: a majority of http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/the_enthusiasm_gap_filling_the.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/the_enthusiasm_gap_filling_the.html Post Polls Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:12:03 -0500 Barack Obama campaigns today in Quad Cities, Iowa, in a so-called "swing state" decided by under one percentage point in 2000 and 2004. It is the second leg of a multi-state tour that culminates Thursday in Denver with his accepting the Democratic nomination at the party's national convention. Obama's trip, with stops in Wisconsin yesterday and Missouri and Montana later this week, underscores the focus of both campaigns on a number of "battleground" states -- electoral toss-ups with the potential to tip the scales in the presidential election. This year, there are many contenders for the honor, and the ensuing influx of ad dollars and candidate visits. The Washington Post has its list , as do many others. Compiling 22 of these analyses shows that Iowa and Missouri are commonly perceived to be top-tier swing states this election cycle, with Wisconsin and Montana cited less frequently. Colorado, where Obama will http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/2008s_top_battlegrounds.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/2008s_top_battlegrounds.html Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:44:33 -0500 Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate is unlikely to shake-up the presidential horse race. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll completed last night, three-quarters of voters said picking Biden would not sway their votes one way or the other. And about as many said they would be more apt to support Obama with Biden on the ticket as said the choice would make them less likely to vote Democratic on Election Day (13 to 10 percent). .poll454 { width: 454px; padding: 10px 0; margin: 10px 0; border-top: 1px dotted #CCC; border-bottom: 1px dotted #CCC; } .poll454 h3 { font: bold 13px/17px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 10px 0; } .poll454 blockquote { font: 13px/17px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; } .poll454 p.credit { font: 11px/14px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #666; margin: 0; } Q. If Obama chooses Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/new_data_impact_of_biden.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/new_data_impact_of_biden.html Post Polls Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:00:00 -0500 With John McCain and Barack Obama trading barbs about who is the more out-of-touch (real estate-wise), in two new national polls, the law professor turned senator appears to have the edge on the Navy pilot turned senator. In the CBS News-New York Times poll released last night, 55 percent of voters said Obama is someone they can "relate" to, while 41 percent said so of McCain. Among independents, however, the two run about evenly: 46 percent said they can relate to the senator from Illinois, 44 percent said so about McCain. Obama fares better on the question among Republicans (28 percent) than McCain does among Democrats (14 percent). .qPoll { width: 454px; padding: 10px 0; } .qPoll h3 { font: bold 12px/12px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #C00; text-transform: uppercase; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999; margin: 0 0 7px 0; padding-bottom: 3px; clear: both; } .qPoll h4 { font: bold 12px/12px Arial, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/more_in-tune_voters_lean_obama.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/more_in-tune_voters_lean_obama.html Polls Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:31:19 -0500 Abortion, that perennial campaign issue, has made its grand entrance into the 2008 presidential contest. As the Post's Jonathan Weisman noted in today's front page article, both John McCain and Barack Obama have made attempts to reach out to those whose views on the issue differ from their own. Recent polling finds abortion ranked near the bottom of the campaign's top issues - just 2 percent named it their single most important consideration in a June Washington Post-ABC News poll - however, for a small, yet substantial, group of voters, differing views on abortion are a dealbreaker. In an early August Time poll, one in five likely voters said they would not consider voting for a candidate who did not share their views on abortion, a figure slightly lower than the proportion holding views on U.S. policy toward Iraq as central to their vote (26 percent), but about even with http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/campaign_2008_enters_the_abort.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/campaign_2008_enters_the_abort.html Polls Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:34:08 -0500 Barack Obama's apparent short-list for the No. 2 slot contains names familiar to constituents and politicos, but little known nationwide. So the first challenge for his pick will be to cement a positive image with American public. Sparring with the GOP will follow. The last time several of the top contenders were listed on the same poll was in December 2006, when the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg asked Democratic voters their impressions of Evan Bayh, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd, among others. In that poll, nearly eight in 10 of these DEMOCRATIC voters said they hadn't heard enough about Bayh to have an impression of him one way or the other, three-quarters said so of Dodd and about six in 10 of Biden. The last time Gallup asked a national sample about Biden, a majority said they either hadn't heard of him (38 percent) or were unsure (17 percent). http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/a_blank_slate_probably.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/a_blank_slate_probably.html Polls Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:07:08 -0500 Would Hillary Clinton have won Iowa if John Edwards had been forced out of the race? Howard Wolfson thinks so.... Wolfson, former director of communications for Clinton's presidential bid, suggested to ABC News that the New York senator would have prevailed in Iowa had Edwards been forced from the race before voting started in early January. "Our voters and Edwards' voters were the same people," Wolfson told ABC. "They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama." It is a pure hypothetical, of course, and the entire dynamics of the contest would have been different without Edwards. But the public data do not bolster the notion that Clinton would have won. In the networks' Iowa entrance poll, 43 percent of those who went to a caucus to support Edwards said Obama was their second choice, far http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/iowa_without_edwards.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/iowa_without_edwards.html Exit polls Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:07:13 -0500 It's that time of year again, a mid-summer treasure trove of data for the Post Polling Department: We have just released our latest in-depth project conducted with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. This time around, the survey focuses in on low-wage workers, a segment of the population on the edge of the teetering economy and one that could prove critical to the upcoming presidential election. The series' first two installments began to explore the experiences and attitudes that shape the group (found here and here; watch for future articles in the coming weeks at the Hardest Hit homepage, found here), and here on Behind the Numbers, we begin with a look at the hottest methodological question in survey research: cell phones. For this poll, we conducted interviews via traditional, landline telephone and also by cell phone. By including cell phone interviews in this survey, we improved http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/hardest_hit_reaching_lowwage_w.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/08/hardest_hit_reaching_lowwage_w.html Low-Wage Workers Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:45:00 -0500 Although many considered the poll an outlier when it was published nine days before the Virginia gubernatorial race in 1989, a Washington Post poll showing Lt. Gov. L. Douglas Wilder with a "commanding" lead was among those that spawned a generation of research on potential bias in public opinion surveys on contests between black and white candidates. The poll showed Wilder, who is African American, with a 15-point advantage over Republican J. Marshall Coleman, a white candidate. On Election Day, Wilder squeaked by with a razor thin margin of under 1 percent to become the country's first black governor. At the time of the Post poll, both campaigns put Wilder's final-stretch lead at about five percentage points, as reported alongside the Post's own poll. Nonetheless, the "Wilder effect" - where whites overstate their support for black candidates - merged with the "Bradley effect" - where whites say they have no http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/new_research_on_the_wilder_eff.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/new_research_on_the_wilder_eff.html Polls Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:57:03 -0500 A little over a week ago, Behind The Numbers took a look at Obama's ability to turn red states blue simply by boosting black turnout over 2004 levels, and found that if all else remained the same, few states would flip without monumental increases. Even assuming 95 percent of African Americans would vote for Obama (in line with the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll and above the 88 percent who voted for John Kerry) as we did here reduces the challenge only minimally. And regardless, Obama faces a challenge in registering additional black voters, let alone getting them to the polls. The analysis used for today's article examined the turnout increase necessary among African Americans in states that went for George W. Bush in 2004, where blacks made up 5 percent or more of voters in 2004 (based on National Election Pool exit polls), and where the total black turnout http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/delving_deeper_on_black_turnou.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/delving_deeper_on_black_turnou.html Exit polls Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:10:03 -0500 One overlooked item in the new WSJ-NBC poll is new evidence of growing public awareness that Barack Obama is a Christian. Asked open-ended (without prompts) to identify Obama's religion, 48 percent said he held a Protestant faith, an 11 percentage point increase from March, and up from 18 percent in WSJ-NBC polling in December. Another 2 percent said he is Catholic. (Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ.) The percentage labeling him a Muslim in the new poll stands at 8 percent, down slightly from 13 percent four months ago. About four in 10, 39 percent, said they are not sure about his religion. Fox News asked the question in a decidedly different manner in their new poll, but the answers were generally similar: "Some people believe Barack Obama, despite his professed Christianity, is secretly a Muslim. Others say that is just a rumor and Obama really http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/obamas_religion.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/obamas_religion.html Polls Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:41:53 -0500 Pew's just released weekly news interest index survey included some questions about the controversial New Yorker cover that filled up so much press time last week. By creating such a stir, the cover certainly slipped into the public consciousness more than the typical New Yorker caricature. Fully 51 percent of those polled by Pew said they had seen the cover art, far far more than the just over a million people who subscribe to the magazine. Among those who reported having seen the cover itself, 50 percent said it was OK for the New Yorker to publish it; 45 percent disagreed. More than half, 54 percent found it "offensive" and 37 percent "racist." But perhaps a bigger indictment of the magazine's effort at satire: Just 36 percent found the cover "clever" and fewer, 27 percent said it was "funny." On each of these questions, there was a big divide between http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/about_that_new_yorker_cover_1.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/about_that_new_yorker_cover_1.html Polls Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:47:04 -0500 When Barack Obama speaks today at Berlin's Victory Column, he addresses a German public down on the United States but hopeful the presumptive Democratic nominee would improve the important transatlantic relationship. Americans too peg Obama as the contender who would do more to improve the image of the U.S. abroad, giving him a better than 2 to 1 advantage over rival John McCain on the issue in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. In that poll, 82 percent of Americans said that the U.S.'s international prestige had declined under George W. Bush, and the public opinion in Germany is case-in-point. In the most recent Pew Global Attitudes poll, just 31 percent of Germans expressed positive views of the U.S., down from 78 percent in 1999-2000 and 60 percent in 2002, before the start of the Iraq war. Just 14 percent said they have confidence in Bush to do the right http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/obama_in_berlin.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2008/07/obama_in_berlin.html President 2008 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:12:37 -0500