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Posts Tagged ‘Lede’

Gallup: GOP Dominating Voter Enthusiasm for 2010 Elections; UPDATE: Left Wing Bloggers Sound Alarm

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

The GOP Holds a Substantial Edge Amongst Enthusiastic Voters Heading into the November 2010 Elections

Gallup is out with a new poll today regarding the upcoming 2010 midterm elections of about 1500 registered voters over the first week of March 2010.  The most significant finding from the polling is that the Republican-supporting voters are substantially more enthusiastic than Democrat-supporting voters, with a full 18 point gap between the parties amongst those “very enthusiastic” about voting in 2010.   The Gallup release, of course, buries the lede by trumpeting in its headline and throughout its release that the Democrats hold a slim 47% to 44% lead amongst all registered voters, while failing to even release its views on the likely voter turnout split.    Gallup’s release:

PRINCETON, NJ — Democrats lead Republicans by a slight 47% to 44% margin when registered voters are asked which party’s congressional candidate they would support in their district “if the elections for Congress were being held today.”At the same time, Gallup’s inaugural weekly tracking update on the 2010 elections shows Republicans with a distinct advantage over Democrats in terms of enthusiasm about voting this year.

While Gallup alludes in its opening paragraph to significant GOP strength in likely voters, nowhere in its release does Gallup actually state its findings on the margin between the parties amongst likely voters. Other pollsters have released numbers regarding the 2010 preferences of likely voters and have found a small but consistent GOP lead: Rasmussen Reports (GOP +8, 44/36) , James Carville’s Democracy Corps (GOP +3, 47/44), Democratic pollster PPP (GOP +3, 43/30), GOP pollster McLaughlin Group (GOP +7, 47/40) are examples. Gallup breaks out its “enthusiasm” numbers in detail instead:

Republican-leaning Voters Have an 18 Point Enthusiasm Advantage over their Democratic counterparts Regarding Voting in November 2010

Gallup’s reported enthusiasm gap, eighteen points amongst those “very enthusiastic” to vote in November 2010 and fourteen points amongst all those either “very” or “somewhat” enthusiastic about voting, almost certainly translates into a lead of at least a few points for the GOP amongst “likely” voters instead of the broader registered voters metric. As noted above, other pollsters, even those from the left, back up those conclusions about likely voters.

Another final warning sign for Democrats regarding turnout in the Gallup report relates to young voters – who apparently are not too enthusiastic about voting in November 2010. Gallup dryly notes that the “apparent lack of motivation to vote — if it continues until Election Day — could deprive Democrats of the full benefit they could in theory derive if all 18- to 29-year-olds were to vote.” Well, of course the Democrats would benefit if all young voters were to turn out in November 2010 – Gallup’s restatement of this fact is another example of Gallup’s attempt to spin the very negative data produced by their polling.   Indeed, if all over 65 voters “were to vote”, the Republican Party would gain a significant benefit because older voters are trending GOP, especially now as a strong majority of older voters oppose the Democratic comprehensive health care reform plans.

Young Voters Are Not Enthusiastic About Voting in November 2010, Especially When Compared to Older Voters

To summarize, Gallup findings, as buttressed by James Carville’s Democracy Corps polling, Democratic pollster PPP’s polling, GOP pollster McLaughlin Group’s polling, and Rasmussen Report’s polling, clearly indicate that the GOP is in a strong position to make significant gains in the November 2010 elections because Republican-leaning voters are much more likely to vote than Democrat-leaning voters. As the health care reform endgame plays out this week and next in Washington, this batch of polling data will undoubtedly be a topic of discussion for politicians of all stripes as decision time on their individual votes draws near.

UPDATE: While the establishment media has had little to say about the results of this Gallup survey and the supporting data from other pollsters, left wing bloggers are today sounding the alarm about the paucity of Democratic enthusiasm to vote in November 2010. Of course, the left wing spin on these numbers is that the Democrats must ram through the unpopular comprehensive health care reform bill to remedy the problem:

Only twenty four percent of Dems and Dem leaners — that would be less than one fourth — are “very enthusiastic” about voting in 2010. And a startlingly high 44%, nearly half, are “not enthusiastic.”

Meanwhile, 42% of Republican voters are very enthusiastic, versus only 30% who are not enthusiastic. Those are more or less mirror images of each other. Indeed, the percentage of Dems who are not enthusiastic is almost exactly the same as the percentage of Republicans who are very enthusiastic!

One other clear measure of how much the bloom is off the Obama rose: Only 20% of voters 18-29 are very enthusiastic.

Dems might want to think about giving their base voters something to get enthusiastic about. Maybe a health care reform signing ceremony in the Rose Garden, perhaps? It’s hard to picture these enthusiasm numbers getting worse for Dems, but imagine if reform failed!

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CNN: 73% Say Start From Scratch (48%) or Stop Work Completely (25%) on Health Care Reform; UPDATE: 52% Oppose Use of Reconciliation

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid May Want to Review CNN's Finding that 73% of the American Public Oppose Passing the Health Care Reform Bills before Congress now or Something Similar

This afternoon CNN released some troubling findings for the Obama Administration: Just 25% of the American public wants Congress to follow the lead of the newly released Obama Health Plan and pass a health care reform plan similar to the plans now before Congress. An overwhelming majority of Americans, 73%, prefer that Congress either start from scratch (48%) or stop work completely on health care reform (25%). Obama’s Health Plan contains essentially the same policies as the bill passed by the Senate, with the addition of price controls for health insurance premiums.

CNN buries the lede in its article accompanying the release of its findings, never mentioning that an overwhelming majority (73%) of the American public disapprove of passing a bill similar to the one before Congress, including four in ten Democrats who want the President and Congress to start over. CNN does manage to state that “nearly three quarters” of Americans want some kind of reform, including in that figure the 48% who want Congress to start over in that grouping in a somewhat dishonest fashion:

Washington (CNN) – Although the overall health care reform bills passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate are unpopular, many of the provisions in the existing bills are extremely popular, even among Republicans, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday also indicates that only a quarter of the public want Congress to stop all work on health care, with nearly three quarters saying lawmakers should pass some kind of reform.

Twenty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with 48 percent saying lawmakers should work on an entirely new bill and a quarter saying Congress should stop all work on health care reform.

…..

The poll’s release comes one day before a critical televised health care summit hosted by President Obama that will include top Congressional Democrats and Republicans.

The survey indicates nearly half of all Democrats say Congress should pass legislation similar to the bills passed by both chambers, with nearly 4 in 10 Democrats saying Congress should start from scratch and just 1 in 10 saying lawmakers should stop all work on health care.

A majority of Republicans questioned, 54 percent, want Congress to start from scratch, with just under 4 in 10 saying lawmakers should halt work on health care reform and just 6 percent saying Congress should pass into law the current legislation.

Fifty-two percent of Independents want Congress to start work on a new bill, with 27 percent saying lawmakers should stop all work, and 18 percent saying that the current legislation should be passed into law.

The final finding noted above in the CNN excerpt is truly incredible: a full 79% of Independents reject passing the current bills before Congress or something similar and only 18% of Independents favor moving forward with the present bills as advocated by the Obama Health Plan. That’s a 61 point gap between approval and disapproval, running against the plan initiated by the release of the Obama Health Plan last Monday and subsequent advocacy of the reconciliation process to circumvent the filibuster and push through Obamacare by the President and his Democratic congressional allies. With the mood of the country so clearly opposed to moving forward with the present bills or something similar in Congress, Obama must provide an incredible performance tomorrow to move public opinion back his way to convince nervous Democrats in Congress that proceeding with pushing through Obamacare now is in their best electoral interest.

UPDATE: Hotair points out that a new USAToday/Gallup poll taken yesterday shows the public opposed to Obama’s possible use of reconciliation to pass Obamacare by a 52%/39% margin and that only 22% of the public thinks the health care summit will result in a bipartisan deal.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs indicated Monday that, if necessary, the White House was open to using a parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation to bypass a prospective filibuster in the Senate. That means a measure could pass the Senate with a 51-vote majority rather than the 60 votes needed to end debate.

Americans are opposed 52%-39% to using that device to get a bill through.

The poll of 1,009 adults nationwide, taken by landline and cellphone Tuesday, has a margin of error of +/—4 percentage points.

UPDATE: Ace at Ace of Spades and Allahpundit at Hotair link over, thank you guys. Readers of Ace and Hotair please take a look around and leave a comment or three.

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