The Democrats Gloat Thread

27% Say U.S. Heading In Right Direction
Rasmussen Poll
27% Say U.S. Heading In Right Direction
May 16, 2006

Just 27% of Americans believe the United States is heading in the right direction while 68% believe we have gotten off on the wrong track.

While the GOP controls all branches of the federal government, just 45% of Republicans around the country think the U.S. is heading in the right direction. Forty-eight percent (48%) of the GOP faithful believe the country has gotten off on the wrong track.

Jus 12% of Democrats and 29% of unaffiliateds believe the country is heading in the right direction.

Thirty-three percent (33%) of men answered our survey by saying "right direction." Just 22% of women share that view.

Among those who are married, 33% believe things are heading in the right direction. Just 24% of unmarried Americans are that optimistic.

Other recent surveys have shown growing pessimism concerning the biggest political issue of recent years, the War on Terror. Just 30% of Americans believe President Bush is doing a good or an excellent job handling the situation in Iraq. Most expect things to get worse in that troubled nation over the next six months.

The President's Job Approval is near the lowest level of his term in office. The War in Iraq hurt the President's approval among Democrats and unaffiliateds. However, the Dubai Ports debacle and immigration issue have cost Bush support among his base.

Mr. Bumble Bee Boogie- You appear to have a good collection of polls, I am very interested in them. Would you have the polling information that was compiled before the Presidential Elections of 2000 and 2004 plus the pollling information on who would win more seats in the House and the Senate in 2002?

I need to see those since, as I am sure you are aware, those polls and the subsequent victories of the GOP are the most important events of all since with victory goes the power to govern.

BernardR


All you have to do is to use Google for a source.

BBB

I am very much afraid that I have been unable to do it, Mr. Bumble Bee Boogie. Since you are obviously expert in sourcing poll data, would you be so good as to find the polling data which said who would win the 2000 , and 2004 presidential elections and the House and Senate elections of 2002. I have a dim recollection that there were, indeed, some polls which predicted that Gore and Kerry would win their respective Presidential Contests and that theRepublicans would lose their majorities in the House and/or Senate but I would never post a mere "recollection"

Again, sir, Mr. Bumble Bee Boogie, I am asking for your expertise.

You are so snarky, Bernard. You know BBB is a woman. Get over yourself.

I am sorry, Ms. BumbleBeeBoogie. I apoligize. But I must ask again. Would you please try to find the polls I mentioned in my previous post? Thank you,Madame.

Basic conditions for a Democratic success seem to be in place..





Those two are current; these ones from May and June:

Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll. June 24-27, 2006.

"Which party -- the Democrats or the Republicans -- comes closer to representing the values that you, yourself, hold important?"

44% Democrats
36% Republicans
20% Both Equally (vol.) / Neither (vol.) / Unsure

"Which party -- the Democrats or the Republicans -- do you think has more honesty and integrity?"

31% Democrats
24% Republicans
45% Both Equally (vol.) / Neither (vol.) / Unsure

"Which party do you think can do a better job handling the major problems facing the country?"

43% Democrats
27% Republicans
30% Both Equally (vol.) / Neither (vol.) / Unsure

ABC News/Washington Post Poll. June 22-25, 2006.

"Overall, which party, the Democrats or the Republicans, do you trust to do a better job in coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years?" Options rotated

48% Democrats
38% Republicans
14% Both (vol.) / Neither (vol.) / Unsure

Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. May 11-12, 2006.

"Now I'm going to read you some phrases and ask if you think each one better describes the Republican Party and its leaders or the Democratic Party and its leaders. . . ."

"Is concerned with the needs and interests of business and other powerful groups"

59% Republican Party
24% Democratic Party

"Selects good candidates for office"

36% Republican Party
40% Democratic Party

"Is concerned with the needs of people like you"

31% Republican Party
54% Democratic Party

"Able to manage the federal government well"

30% Republican Party
47% Democratic Party

"Can bring about the kind of changes this country needs"

30% Republican Party
53% Democratic Party

"Governs in an honest and ethical way"

29% Republican Party
41% Democratic Party

"Some" polls, for sure.

However, check here for some nice graphs of how the main pollsters had the 2000 Bush vs Gore race shaping up through the campaign. As you can see, four of the five selected pollsters had Bush ahead of Gore throughout the campaign, including at the end.

Moreover, of the 18 final-week polls listed here, 14 had Bush winning, 2 had a dead heat, and only 2 had Gore winning.

So it looks like pollsters were doing fine checking that race.

As for 2004, here you can see a list of the different polling agencies's final-week polls and vote projections. Adding up the two, we see that 15 polls and projections showed Bush ahead, and only 5 had Kerry ahead.

So the pollsters seem to have done fine on the bottom-line question of that race too.

So - perhaps a reason to not dismiss their current data either?

The only thing I have against polls is where they poll. They never seem to say that. I suspect that most are done in metropolitan areas.

Does anyone have any data showing where these polls take place?

McG, Why would it matter if polls are accurate whether it's done in urban and/or metro areas?

Because people are different. If you polled 1000 people in the heartland, do you really believe the polls would be similar?

Pollsters probably made all the necessary study for their polls for them to result in such accuracy.

If there are huge discrepancies from polls to actual results, then I would question how polls were done, but as nimn has shown, the majority of polls done are pretty accurate. Where's the beef?

I was curious if any studies like I asked had been done. Figured someone might know.

Respondents are selected randomly. If most polls were done in metropolitan areas, you'd get some crazy results - not the ones that line up relatively neatly with actual election results, give or take a few percent. You'd have gotten 55% for Kerry or something.

There are a number of issues with the random selection of respondents, and all are on the rise. An increasing number of people refuse to answer the pollster's call or questions. Those people might or might not lean a certain way politically above-proportionally. Pollsters use records of phone numbers, but an increasing number of people have no listed phone number, relying exclusively on cellphones or choosing to keep their number listed private. Those people, too, might or might not lean a certain way politically above-proportionally.

But the random selection of numbers to call should yield a proportional number of rural / urban / metropolitan respondents.

Moreover, the above factors might well balance each other out. Recent experiences with exit polls seem to suggest that conservatives could be slightly overrepresented among those who refuse to answer. But people who no longer have a listed number because they rely exclusively on their cellphone will tend to be young and urban, and thus be above-proportionally liberal. All that is speculation, but as long as the polls dont get results that are much more than the margin of error off from immediately subsequent election results, it doesnt seem to have a majorly distorting impact one way or another.

(Being 2-3% off could have you listing the wrong winner of course, but is usually within the margin of error, and in polls like the ones above doesn't amount to a significant change in the picture).

Ralph Reed's quest to be nominated by his party to run for LG of Georgia has failed.

Thank you blatham, A2K's leftist Town Crier.

Aw.... Finn must've liked the Moral Majority posterboy sellout.

Yes, thank you Blatham -- Finn obviously would already have known, with his keen interest for conservative US politics, but its undoable from here to keep abreast on every individual American state's political pre-developments (Reed doesnt even make the newspaper here). So its useful for someone like me that there is an A2Ker picking out interesting info like that and posting it here.

Made me Google a news article about it, interesting stuff, also in the light of evaluating how much of an impact the Abramoff fall-out can have these elections.

Nimh, If you had to vote by party in America, would you vote Republican or Democrat? (only two choices)

Or do you want to slap the $hit out of both of us?

You have to ask?

I would Never In My Life vote Republican.

Whenever the race between Dem and Rep would not seem extremely tight, one way or another, I would vote Green or the like (but not Nader).

Last two times, I would have held my nose and voted Gore and Kerry, but only because the race was so tight and Bush is so bad. But I would have much preferred to be able to vote Cobb, the Green candidate of '04.

In '96 I would probably still have voted Nader, he didnt seem so noxious at the time. In '92 and probably '88 as well, some left-wing third party candidate too. In '84, I would have voted Mondale, just because Reagan was so bad, and anyway, Mondale was still the kind of Democrat that Gore and Kerry so clearly were not anymore.

<sighing about lost US political traditions>