Much of the political world gasped this week when the latest New York Times/CBS News poll found President Obama's approval rating down sharply over the last month, dropping from 50% to 41% for no apparent reason. Though the same poll still showed Obama leading the Republican field, the nine-point drop in support was one of the largest drops any president has seen in the poll in the last 15 years, and reversed a general positive trend for the president.
In many circles, Democrats had to resist the urge to panic, while Republicans started walking with a spring in their step. Both, however, were asking the same question: what happened to cause such a decline?
The answer, in all likelihood, is nothing.
As of this morning, I've seen seven national polls released this week: Pew Research Center, Reuters, Gallup, Daily Kos/SEIU, Bloomberg, Washington Post/ABC News, and the aforementioned New York Times/CBS News survey. I put together a chart showing Obama's approval/disapproval in each of the seven:
As you'll notice, there's a fair amount of variety here. The president's approval rating varies from 51% to 41%, while his disapproval rating goes from 43% to 50%.
Average these seven polls together, and what do you get? 47.3% approval, 47.1 disapproval.
As Ezra Klein noted this morning, when it comes to "the mystery of Obama's plummeting poll numbers, I'm not yet convinced there's any mystery here at all.... [U]ntil more polls show a significant drop for the president, I'm inclined to write this off as noise."
I agree. If all seven of this week's polls showed the same thing, it'd be far easier to take the results seriously, but that's just not the case. One poll found a sharp drop in the president's support, a few polls found a steady increase. Those looking for reasons to celebrate or mourn will have to look elsewhere.
I'd just add one more relevant detail: it's mid-March. I'd be lying if I said I ignored the polls at this stage, but the election is 237 days away. At various stages, the various candidates will go up and down in the coming months, trading leads and seeing peaks and valleys in their levels of support. There's just no reason for one poll to be taken too seriously, no matter what it says.
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There is another factor that might be at work in the March polling: Spring break. Lots of school districts are on holiday at various times during the month and depending upon where a specific pollster made specific calls, they might have had trouble finding people at home. For example, market researchers often avoid doing studies during March since results tend to skew awkwardly because of who is home and who has grabbed the kids and fled town for a week or two while school is out.
While his approval numbers show some fluctuation, what has remained consistent is Pres. Obama's lead in various hypothetical match-ups against Romney and Santorum.
I really do not have anywhere to put this so I will put it here. Honest to god it scares me. Now I know the far right is completely off its nut but the following response to an article posted on a Wing-Nut blog called Coach Is Right and is entitled Obama's War on Chirstians and Jews started before he was elected is one heavy thing:
THIS is what we are up against, friends. This. :(
OK, I'm calling BS on this one. Are their nut jobs on both sides? Yup, and they both make ridiculous claims (see above), but when you see opposition painting the majority with a broad brush, I think it's a sure sign of desperation. I don't think those on the left are evil and want to destroy our country, I think both sides want America to thrive, I think the issues on how we get there is the difference.
Eric, a majority of Republicans either believe that Obama is a muslim or think he might be. That's not a few nut jobs. That's a lot of nut jobs. In this case, the broad brush would seem to be painting in colors that look realistic.
@Eric
I reported. Let readers decide.
Haven't I hear something similar someplace? … let me think...
Unless you can show me where that is true, I'm calling BS yet again.
Polls are bull@!$%#. If you notice they are usually included at the beginning of a news report of Blog entry designed to denigrate the other side. I never give polls the correct error.
The only relevant polls for the Corporately Owned Media are their own. The only relevant polls for the reich-wing are those that are the least favorable to Obama. And, of course, any and all polling that shows Obama leading any individual repuknican candidate is totally irrelevant and not worthy of consideration.
Exactly; They need that horse race to sell Pharmaceuticals on the Evening NOOZE. How do think they screen the polls. DUH!
It's the same principle as letters to the editor . They can print as many letters on one side of an issue as they want ...see it's what the people want.
If you have ever listened to Bill Mahers polls on his show ... kind of puts it in perspective . Its the questions asked stupid.
http://www.real-time-with-bill-maher-blog.com/real-time-with-bill-maher-blog/2012/1/20/poll-results.html
For the longest time, the only one I trusted was Nate Silver. 538 Blog got me through the Bush 43 years.
But did you see? I about dropped my teeth. He completely misread the primaries the other night. Maybe the numbers are about to go really squirrelly or something.
Personally, I love it when the numbers go squirrelly. I have a secret desire for sampling methodologies (1,500 people can tell you everything you need to know about the whole world, apparently) to be invalidated, or at least screwed with.
Every time I answer a survey, I do like that Calvin and Hobbes strip, where I give answers to be SURE to screw with the data patterns. I figure my answers will count for millions. I've been doing that ever since I took that grad course in SPSS and social science quant methods. It's like my personal mission.
Polls are perhaps the most insidious aspect of American politics. One bad poll, an outlier, and the entire mainstream press is shouting that Obama ought to be impeached over high gas prices. The reality of the situation is that the president is in his best position for reelection in at ;least two years thanks to a booming economy and a debilitating Republican primary. The GOP could not find any reasonable candidates to run against Obama, and now they're on the verge of tossing aside the only sane -- though flawed -- one of the bunch. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
Who is the sane republican candidate?
In the current state of survey research one out of 20 polls (5%) will be an outlier. That means that 5% of the time, we can expect the reported result to vary from the (hypothetical) real result by more than the margin of error (typically 3-4% in either direction, depending on the sample size).
There is no way to tell from the results of any one poll whether that particular poll is an outlier or not. The best way to tell is to average results from numerous similare (ideally, identical) samples.
Thus, I would not be surprised to find the NYT poll was indeed an outlier. More important, NYT, and all other organizations, ought to treat their reporting of their polls accordingly. This would mean prefacing the findings with appropriate context of what other polls are indicating.
Steve Bennen does this correctly.
It might be useful to put little confidence bars on each of the bars on this graph. My guess is that most of the confidence bars will show that the data are overlapping and that there is no statistical (significant) difference in most of these bars. Why is there not more difference? Maybe it's the way the questions are asked. Maybe it's the ennui of the responders. Who knows? Maybe these surveys simply are not very useful.
The Republican primaries have the candidates dominating the media, and bashing the President is a large part of what they're doing. It's not a surprise the poll numbers are down.
This might be the reason:
"IPSOS/REUTERS has Obama at 50% approval. Remember we were just fed a bunch of poll results on Obama's approval ratings at 41%. We have now found out why? It seems those who were being polled favored more republicans than democrats..."
From Keith Olbermnann Fan Page
Quoi! makes good points, also isn't it way too early?
Here's another in a long line of divergent conservative thinking. The Right wing bashes the President for not doing enough to bring gas prices down, yet with their next breath bash him with the "Socialist" label. Ironic much?
The next chart you should print is the number of times each of these polls gets significant attention. I would bet the Times/CBS poll gets twice the attention of the others combined - not because it suggests a drastic change, but because it bodes poorly for Obama and gives the media yet another opportunity to say why everyone hates Obama. The reason this is important is that pollsters can very easily skew their results in subtle ways such as adjusting the internals. The media attention gives them incentive to do just that.
I take all published polls with a giant grain of salt. I suspect that, especially this far out from the election, the publisher's favored narrative drives the results instead of visa versa.
Speaking of polls can someone answer a dumb question for me. Do you apply the margin of error to each candidate so that a +/- 3% means you have to beat the candidate by 6% Like if it is Romney 42% and Santorum 36% is that a statistical tie? Seems like the press only reports it as a statistical tie if it is within 3%
So why did the media make such a big deal about this one poll? Oh his numbers plumitted, it's gas prices. I'm having a hard time believing the media with there constant need to be first. How about being right instead.
Hey, the media can also tell you that the Dow Jones went up or down 1% because of some comment made in Greece today. Imagine the number of investors they must consult to draw an intelligent conclusion there. My guess is that someone provides the narrative, but hey. Could be tarot cards.
I'm not one prone to conspiracies but I feel that something isn't right. When President Obama travels around he is greeted by thousands of cheering supporters anywhere he goes. When I see Romney or the other GOP candidates, they can't even fill a high school gym. The GOP voted to end Medicare, they're anti-gay, anti-black, anti-middle class, anti-immigrant, and anti-women. How in the world are they receiving any support other than some old white men?
Because unfortunately keith there are some who are not old white men who are still being led to believe that he is not the choice for them. Many people on the right are sheep. The problem is they do not know it or they are just of with being told what to believe.
Because the "go-see" factor of the sitting President is 10X that of a wanna-be. To go see the wanna-be you have to believe in his ideology. When the President speaks, you got alot of people running around with their iphone out hoping to get the ultimate facebook pic.
Well Keith, it could be because you've obviously been fed a line of bull and actually believe that, while the rest of America has come to a contrary conclusion.
Ashley, just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't make them a "sheep." The fact that liberals decline to name calling when they don't get there way is very very entertaining.
With three republican canditates,one so called "news channel"and numerous super pacs pounding him 24 hrs.per day,and gas prices going through the roof,is it any wonder his poll numbers are down.To top it off I see very few democrats out there defending him.It's pretty hard to fight back when republicans dont even have a nominee yet.Let's wait and see the polls after the Pres.starts his ad campaign and the dem.super pacs get rolling.
Ah, but the news articles about the polls already had an answer -- gas prices!
That was definitely the worst thing about the whole brouhaha.
I am not going to put any significance on any polls at this time. They are useless as an indicator of voter attitudes. I will not attach any significance to polls just before the race if it is a close election. Voters are not going to make up their mind until the day of or before the elections. The lesson of 2008 is anything can happen and the worst came true when the economy tanked under Bush. I think that had more to do with McCain's loss than Palin when the independents voted.
The bigger issue here is that these kinds of polls don't reflect WHY people approve/disapprove.
One person might disapprove of Obama because he's not taking a strong enough stance against the Republicans, while another does because they think he's a socialist. Yet both viewpoints count the same in terms of approval rating. But the one saying he's not fighting the GOP hard enough is hardly going to vote Republican in November.
It's just like a few years ago when Pelosi and the Dem. Congress had a lower approval rating than Bush. The Republicans claimed it as a huge victory and mocked the Dems for it, but in reality the biggest reason for that rating is because they weren't doing enough to stop the war or prosecute those who had lied to us.
One, I consider Opinion Polls to be a "crack pipe" for the media. They need an immediate "high" (or commentary point) so they have "substance" to fill all the timed segments that support the commercial enterprise that is our media (for the most part). Real in-depth, long range reporting is just so ...before the internet age of 24/7 "news"... and rare in today's media, especially on political issues.
So, opinion polls become the crutch or the lead in story in which to build a dialogue between various talking heads with divergent opinions ...on the opinions.
It is all opinion -- a frankly fluctuating thing even in one mind, much more so in some 1000-1500 folks who just happened to answer the phone and not hang up because they had better things to do than answer questions with a predetermined set of possible answers. On those set answers I find the greatest error in opinion polling crack smoking. Would having people who think outside the norm and who might actually give cogent answers from their own sensibility just take too long and not fit into the "scientific" parameters (and the segment times of media reports)?
I answered a phone call at my mom's recently, the recorded voice said "this is a political poll" (no entity revealed). I decided to answer. First they asked if I was a likely voter, which I am. Okay. Then they gave me a list of things I was supposed to choose from as my priority issue. None of these fit my point of view, the option was "undecided". I am not undecided, I just don't fit into these acceptable norm categories ( FYI Education is my priority as I feel it is the single most important issue to cure the ignorance in the electorate which feeds most all that is ill in the system).
So I hung up. I guess I could have chosen something that wasn't true OR just been a trickster and lied to the robo-voice (Do not ever imagine people haven't done this... my dear data gatherers).
My point is this: Opinion polling has some value, however it is given way too much credence in our news/information/opinion-offering platforms. The quality of any one or all opinion polls combined rests on two very important underlying issues --- What questions were asked and answers provided by the polling entity AND Who answered the phone (did they grasp the issues, was there an answer that accurately gave their viewpoint and were they honest?)
As to the ignorance in the electorate, Thomas Jefferson rolls in his grave. As to the laziness of news entities today, Edward R Murrow rolls right along with him.
To be clear -- Rachel Maddow's show is one of the better hours on TV for those of us that appreciate good reporting. Thank you for that.
You are correct that opinion polls by themselves tell us nothing. But when you get more information as to why people have an opinion, it has more value to candidates and the people who interpret polls. You have to ask the right follow up questions before you can rely on a poll. But even this far out from an election, the best you can discern from a poll may be long term issues with a candidate or trends in opinions on specific issues.
So then should we take any poll with a grain of salt that Maddow Ed or Lawrence drooled over when Obama was doing better on them
Every show on MSNBC couldn't wait to post poll figures when Obama was doing better on them even going as far as posting polls from a year ago then claim it was a present poll
So which is it are all polls inaccurate or is it just the polls that show Obama doing poorly inaccurate ?
You must be watching a different MSNBC than I am. The Times/CBS poll being discussed here got plenty of coverage, along with the consensus that it was all about gas prices.
just sayin.... March 2008
Obama Clinton McCain
Never mind .....
Chart didn't translate
Looking for the link
Point was 8 months out , who has a clue ... all Swags each and very one
There is only one poll that matters and that is Nov 6, we know Republicans cannot honestly county votes, they are doing a masterful job of voter suppression, and no one is standing up to them.....I think Obama is in trouble.
Just vote , and make it your business to encourage one young person a day to do the same.
There was a FULL moon on March 8th! Answers it for me.
I've also noticed a big uptick in the viral right-wing emails (a relative passes them along to me). Lots of old ones revived -- death panels, healthcare rationing, voter fraud, etc. And a few new. The trolls in the basement are fully employed again, it seems... and I did wonder if it had some effect. Reminding the marginally informed that oh, yeah, they're supposed to hate the guy because he's a Muslim socialist anti-colonial Kenyan and probably the antichrist, who is engineering a takeover of the country by swarms of brown and black people on welfare.