Tag: statistics

Rasmussen: 54/42 against health care rationing.

It would seem that finally putting out all the various versions, alternates, and fevered mutterings of what the Democrats are trying to call ‘health care reform’ has helped to clarify matters for voters some more. It’s just not clarifying matters in a fashion that will make the current ruling party happy. Rasmussen’s latest snapshot:

Now that the Senate Finance Committee has passed its version of health care reform, 42% of voters nationwide favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and down four from the week before.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% are opposed to the plan.

It is perhaps unkind to point out two details about the 42%:

  • The current state of affairs means that the number represents support for the hope that there will eventually be an acceptable health care bill.
  • Hope is not a plan.

…but it’s probably necessary.  Watching the… seven*?… Democratic factions try to reconcile the mess that they’ve created for themselves should be remarkably engrossing.

Moe Lane

*Well, you’ve got House progressives & Senate liberals; like vulnerable House members and ‘moderate’ Democratic Senators, there’s the House/Senate split on outlook to consider.  So that’s four.  Then there’s the House’s and the Senate’s leadership, with the two groups being barely civil to each other these days.  That’s two more.  And then there’s the White House, who pretty much caused this mess by letting the other six factions have free rein over the process.  So, seven.

Crossposted to RedState.

The September Rasmussen Public Trust Numbers.

The Democrats may simply have to accept the fact that they no longer can automatically count on the trust of the American people on any topic.

September 2009 August 2009
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 44% 44% – 41% 44% (3) 3
Education 45% 40% 5 38% 41% (3) 8
Social Security 43% 41% 2 39% 43% (4) 6
Abortion 37% 44% (7) 36% 46% (10) 3
Economy 39% 47% (8) 40% 46% (6) (2)
Taxes 40% 48% (8) 35% 51% (16) 8
Iraq 37% 47% (10) 42% 42% – (10)
Nat’l Security 39% 51% (12) 43% 47% (4) (8)
Gov’t Ethics 34% 35% (1) 34% 31% 3 (4)
Immigration 33% 45% (12) 35% 43% (8) (4)

Seven out of ten, and one tie.  The good news for the Democrats is that they made some decent recoveries from August’s numbers; the bad news is that August was really bad for them, so they’re still trying to make up ground.  The most important/topical number there – health care – is probably their brightest spot, but being equally trusted on an issue when you’ve spent the last few years being clearly trusted is not the most welcome news in the world.  Particularly when ‘trusting the Democrat’ does not exclude ‘trusting the Democrat to vote the Republican position.’

Moving on: nice to see that the Government Ethics numbers are starting to consistently reflect objective reality, not to mention the Economy ones.  I’m interested how much of that is reflected by cap-and-trade – and how bringing that issue back will affect the Taxes question.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Gallup mutters about relationship between Dow, approval ratings.

Clearly in reference to Jim Cramer’s I’ve-been-saving-this-for-months revenge clip* of a few days ago, the Gallup organization would like you to know that there’s no historical relationship between a President’s approval rating and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

None at all.

Absolutely zero.

Mind you, that wasn’t the argument that got made – Cramer was arguing that this specific President’s disapproval ratings (via Gallup!) were being reflected in the S&P 500 going up – but nonetheless, Gallup felt the need to do that analysis.

Well.  Thanks for letting us know.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, I see the large holes in Cramer’s theory.  So does Cramer, probably.  It’s still funny that Gallup felt the need to do some repair work here. Clumsily. Continue reading Gallup mutters about relationship between Dow, approval ratings.

The August Rasmussen Public Trust Numbers.

Democrats slip to -3 on health care.

I think that this is going to sting the Democrats a little.

August 2009 July 2009
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 41% 44% (3) 46% 42% 4 (7)
Education 38% 41% (3) 41% 38% 3 (6)
Social Security 39% 43% (4) 37% 42% (5) 1
Abortion 36% 46% (10) 39% 46% (7) (3)
Economy 40% 46% (6) 41% 46% (5) (1)
Taxes 35% 51% (16) 36% 52% (16) –
Iraq 42% 42% – 41% 45% (4) 4
Nat’l Security 43% 47% (4) 40% 49% (9) 5
Gov’t Ethics 34% 31% 3 33% 34% (1) 4
Immigration 35% 43% (8) 34% 40% (6) (2)

Eight out of ten again, and the only sour note is that last month’s Democratic-flavored scandals were not sufficiently public enough to overcome what appears to be the built-in public bias on Government Ethics. On the other hand, we just took first place in health care for the first time in two years, and it’s still fifteen months to November 2010. So, room for development, there. As for the Iraq question… well, for both countries’ sake I’m just as pleased to see that it’s reflecting a relatively quiet situation. The way that our domestic numbers are racking up I’m just as happy to concentrate on those right now anyway.

So, you have to wonder: at what point will the White House decide that it’s time to fold and start a new hand?

Moe Lane

(H/T: @JamesRichardson)

Crossposted to RedState.

The CNN ‘Second 100 days’ report card.

Found here, in all its unscientific and meaningless glory.  Oh, yes: its findings are completely invalid, from the C+ given to Secretary State Clinton to the D given to Congress (or that the D given to Republican leadership is nonetheless a higher D than the one given to Congress as a whole).  There’s nothing random about the process by which they got 300K folks to take the test in the first place; if any of the answers are right, it’s completely by accident.  All very, very true.

On the other hand – and speaking as an old-school blogger who remembers how often these kinds of polls got gleefully taken over by Lefty script kiddies – if the purpose of the poll was to answer the question How motivated is the Online Left these days? then the results may be worth looking over, after all.  Because they suggest that the answer appears to be, Apparently not all that much.

A tragedy.  Manipulating online polls so that the results came out congruent with their comforting fantasy ideology was always one of the Left-sphere’s more charming traits.  Or less not-charming, at least.

Moe Lane

The July Rasmussen Public Trust numbers.

Short version: the public trusts the GOP over the Democrats 8-for-10 at this point, and we flipped the Abortion and Social Security categories.  That being said, the numbers readjusted themselves in the Democrats’ favor 5-for-10 as compared to last month‘s.

July 2009 June 2009
Issue Dem GOP Diff Issue Democrats GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 46% 42% 4 Health Care 47% 37% 10 (6)
Education 41% 38% 3 Education 44% 37% 7 (4)
Social Security 37% 42% (5) Social Security 43% 37% 6 (11)
Abortion 39% 46% (7) Abortion 41% 41% – (7)
Economy 41% 46% (5) Economy 39% 45% (6) 1
Taxes 36% 52% (16) Taxes 39% 44% (5) (11)
Iraq 41% 45% (4) Iraq 37% 45% (8) 4
Nat’l Security 40% 49% (9) Nat’l Security 36% 51% (15) 6
Gov’t Ethics 33% 34% (1) Gov’t Ethics 29% 35% (6) 5
Immigration 34% 40% (6) Immigration 29% 43% (14) 8

Rasmussen has only put these numbers out here so far, unless I’ve missed it.  The shift down for the Democrats may be a trend; it may also be an inevitable result of the Republicans improving their position in eight out of ten categories from May to June.  Either way, I don’t think that it’s an accident that most of the GOP increases are in areas that have been in the news for the last month; particularly taxes, and particularly health care. The Democrats may want to consider adopting a strategy of visibly doing nothing at all, on anything…

Moe Lane

PS: Also, the upcoming monthly financial reports for the various committees are going to be very interesting.

Crossposted to RedState.

June’s Rasmussen trust numbers versus May’s.

[UPDATE] Rasmussen finally put up an article.

So, last month I posted Rasmussen’s report that the Republicans were back to being trusted more than Democrats on four critical topics, and trusted more and/or tied on five.  It got a surprising amount of play, given that I hadn’t really thought all that much about it when I wrote it.  Besides, it was one month, compared to a very, very, very bad month for Republicans; the numbers could very easily shift by the next month.

They did.

Jun-09 May-09
Issue Democrats GOP Diff Democrats GOP Diff Shift
Health Care 47% 37% 10 53% 35% 18 8
Education 44% 37% 7 49% 36% 13 6
Social Security 43% 37% 6 48% 39% 9 3
Abortion 41% 41% – 41% 41% – –
Economy 39% 45% (6) 44% 43% 1 7
Taxes 39% 44% (5) 41% 47% (6) (1)
Iraq 37% 45% (8) 41% 43% (2) 6
Nat’l Security 36% 51% (15) 41% 48% (7) 8
Gov’t Ethics 29% 35% (6) 40% 29% 11 17
Immigration 29% 43% (14) 36% 37% (1) 13

Continue reading June’s Rasmussen trust numbers versus May’s.

Rasmussen and the quietly rusting Democratic advantage.

[UPDATE] And welcome, Weekly Standard readers.
[UPDATE] Welcome, Instapundit readers. Taking a trip, soon? Murtha’s here to help!

Examining Rasmussen’s trust-on-issues numbers from month to month is interesting enough, but I was interested in the long term trends.  So I put together this chart comparing this month’s numbers with those of last October’s*:

October 2008 May 2009
Issue Dem GOP Diff Dem GOP Diff Cum Shift
Economy 51% 38% 13 44% 43% 1 (12)
Govt Ethics 40% 30% 10 40% 29% 11 1
National Sec. 47% 44% 3 41% 48% (7) (10)
Education 53% 34% 19 49% 36% 13 (6)
Healthcare 54% 34% 20 53% 35% 18 (2)
Taxes 47% 42% 5 41% 47% (6) (11)
Iraq 47% 42% 5 41% 43% (2) (7)
Social Security 49% 37% 12 48% 39% 9 (3)
Abortion 47% 38% 9 41% 41% – (9)
Immigration 40% 38% 2 36% 37% (1) (3)

Continue reading Rasmussen and the quietly rusting Democratic advantage.