The poll produced a huge amount of information. It's startling to realize, when you look at the demographic data, how much more information is available in a poll than just the simple percentages in response to the question.
More on that later. The poll came up with some powerful findings. For starters 85% of Democrats are more likely to support a candidate who supports impeachment.
100% of the African Americans in the poll-- 109-- now believe that the Iraq war was unjustified. Zero percent of the African Americans polled support the appointment of Alito to the Supreme Court. 80.3% oppose it and 19.7 percent are not sure. That helps explain the huge drop in support Bob Casey sees from African Americans when they learn his positions. How huge?
Casey loses virtually 50% of his African American support (think Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) I was shocked until I checked the polls issue question demographics and found how strongly the African American Community feels about those two issues.
The thing is, most poll reports just give the straight answer numbers-- Santorum vs. Casey... period. That's what the pollsters in Pennsylvania have been doing for months.
My goal was to work with a highly respected pollster who would help me get answers that would go deeper. I wanted to include all the declared candidates, something none of the other polls did. I wanted to makes sure the panelist taking the poll knew something about all the candidates. So I phoned each campaign, told them I was doing the poll, let them know they would be getting an email, sent out at the same time, asking them for short answers to questions on where they stand on key issues. I made it clear that I would construct a profile of each candidate who did not reply.
All the candidates seemed to be agreeable. I gave the candidates three days to respond. Casey's response didn't arrive, so I called my contact at his campaign. After the deadline, the Casey camp responded by email that they would not participate. I sent one more email, reiterating that I would be constructing his positions from public statements if he didn't reply. He didn't, so I constructed the statements. Not that controversial. He's anti-abortion, anti-stemcell. All the questions in the poll are at my site, including the statements about each candidate, here:
All The Questions On the OpEdNews.Com/ Zogby People's Poll -- the complete questions as given to the panelists of the OpEdNews/Zogby Poll
The statistics are here:
Statistics from the OpEdNews / Zogby People's Poll Statistics for the PA race for US Senate.
Now, the stats on the African Americans are not on the site. There is a lot more to polling than meets the eye. In the last few days I've spoken to a number of pretty high visibility progressive pundits and it's amazing, well maybe not, that they've never really seen the insides of a real poll. The amount of information is mind boggling. There are about 70 different stats for each question-- not just the four or six the regular poll data shows.
We don't usually see them. The political people do. I'm sure that Santorum and Casey have run polls that tell them their strengths and weaknesses in the different demographic groups.
I wrote an article on this: The Power, the Gold and Inside Secrets of Polling What you don't know about polling; The OpEdNews.com/Zogby People's Poll found that people oppose the Nuclear option, who opposes Alito, which demographic group dropped 50% in support of Casey when they learn his policies, strong support for Free candidate air time and no contribution campaigns, majority feel Bush broke law and lots more
I won't publish the demographics for the horserace part of the poll because they're too valuable to the opposition. But I am publishing a few questions worth of basic stats and demographics on issue questions relating to electronic voting, paper ballots and election reform. The basic numbers are pretty staggering.
Here's the first question:
Following are three statements about electronic voting. Please tell me which statement comes closest to your point of view - A, B, or C?
Statement A: Electronic voting is efficient and trustworthy. It will make voting easier, count ballots quicker, and avoid the problems associated with counting paper ballots.
Statement B: Electronic voting is okay only if there is a paper trail, much like ATM machines which provide you with a printed receipt. That way voters can verify that their vote is recorded correctly and there is no risk of the electronic records being lost, hacked or manipulated with no verifiable record.
Statement C: There should be no electronic voting. We should only use voting machines which use paper ballots or old, reliable lever machines.
1. A 2. B 3. C 4. None/other 5. Not sure
The PA residents who took the poll are on the verge of having HAVA required electronic machines-- ES&S, Diebold-- foisted upon them. Most of the people don't know much about what's going on. But in response to this poll, 12% were okay with electronic voting and an rock and rolling out of the ball part 85% want paper ballots-- 73% accepting electronic with verifiable paper ballots as the ballot of record. 12% would accept the old-fashioned non-electronic paper ballot or lever machines.
Interestingly, Born-agains and people who go to religious services once or twice a month or more have some of the lowest numbers in support of paper ballots. Then again, they don't approve of condoms either (that's not on this poll.)
By 9:00 PM EST we'll have the demographic data for the five questions we asked on this issue on the OpEdNews.com site. The leader of a local voting integrity group told me today that she showed the poll results to the district's US congressman and it was part of what she used to persuade him to submit legislation to congress allowing municipalities to put off buying new voting technology. Damn, it felt good to hear that. I think the information could help verifiable vote advocates nationwide. The numbers are so strong.
Here are the other four questions.
19. Again, which of the following statements about voting comes closer to your point of view - A or B?
Statement A: Voting machines and other voting equipment or technology should be contracted out to and owned and operated by private businesses and corporations. It would save the taxpayers money and would be more efficient.
Statement B: Voting machines and other voting equipment or technology should be owned and operated by state and municiple entities. This would ensure that people from both or all political parties are involved in the process, cutting down on the possibility of voting fraud.
1. A 2. B 3. None/other 4. Not sure
20. Do you think that the job of maintaining voter records and determining who is eligible to vote should be outsourced to private companies and corporations or should it be the function of state, county and municipal organizations to maintain voter records and determine who is eligible to vote?
1. Outsourced to private companies/corporations
2. Function of state, county, and municiple organizations
3. Neither/other
4. Not sure
80% of panelists chose option 2. Unlike MANY issues, this is one that men and women agree on almost exactly, within two tenths of a percentage point.
21. Which of the following positions on election financing comes closer to your own position - A or B?
Position A: Candidates should be allowed to raise as much money as they want from individuals, industry, and corporations.
Position B: All eligible candidates should get a fixed amount of money to spend on their campaigns to prevent influence buying.
Look out PACs and wealthy contributors. The people are ready to shut down influence buying. 66% support position B over 27% supporting position A. But what a difference gender makes on this one. 40% of Men support A while only 16% of women do. 80% of Women support B, while only 51% of men do. And 52% of Republicans support A. Fortunately between the 40% of Republicans who support B and the 87% of Democrats who support B, there is strong support. But that raises the question, how do we find candidates who will give up their PAC fix. Answer: There are already candidates out there who are refusing to take PAC money. They're the ones people here on dailykos attack for not raising enough money. They're also the only ones who can really clean up the election system, IMHO.
22. Would you support or oppose a law that would require local and national media to give free ad time to all qualifying candidates running for a particular office?
1. Support 2. Oppose 3. Other/not sure
This is one that you'll never see in a mainstream media poll. If you're going to limit funds and have the government pay them, the biggest expense is media time. Well, we the people own the airwaves and license them to the networks and local stations. Why shouldn't we, as a small price to pay to insure cleaner elections and healthier democracy, take some of that time for the election process. The people agree by 65% to 27%. That's based on 85% of Democrats, 50% of Republicans and 57% of independents.
23. Do you think we should keep the current electoral college system of electing a president, or do you believe that we should elect a president by popular vote?
1. Keep electoral college
2. Use popular vote
3. Other/not sure
I was surprised to see that this was a dead heat, 46% for keeping the electoral college and 47 for switching to the popular vote. Not surprisingly 74% of Republicans want to keep the electoral college-- hey, those red states get extra weight-- while 71% of Democrats want to switch to the popular vote. 64% of men want to keep the electoral college compared to 61% of women wanting to switch to the popular vote.
There's a lot of information that will help voting integrity activists. I'm sure the big voting machine companies already know the info. Companies use pollsters all the time. We progressives and the leaderless Democrats should be using polls much more often. Ironically, I received an email from Chris Bowers at MyDD.com that he and a group of bloggers had raised funds, commissioned a poll and were about to post their first results. We'd been working without knowing about each other's work. Chris's group's poll is a national poll. They get credit for doing the first national progressive's poll. OpEdNews gets credit for doing the first Progressive's poll, and Bob Fertik and David Swanson, of impeachPAC, afterdowningstreet and democrats.com get credit for doing the first progressive poll questions, piggy-backed on other polls.
Bottom line is, we progressives need to start using polls more. It is clear that the big media use polls to bolster the credibility of their echo-chamber spin. The polls make their claims, their hype and their attacks look more legitimate. We have to start come to the table using the same power weapons. The senate democrats should have been polling on the Alito question. They should have been asking question of all the demographic groups on all the issues he's been an extremist nut-job on. Then, they could have gone into the hearings asking questions they knew would hit the right buttons, even with the right wing's base. I'm sure they didn't It is bloody insane that these guys who all used polls to win elections didn't poll on the most important fight of the century since the elections.
So now, we have two polls, some poll questions... We need strong leaders to put it all together. They just may emerge out of the blogosphere. Markos, ready for a poll? <GG>
Oh... I promised in my title some stats on Alito, and corruption too.
On Bush's spying without court approval,other pollsters seem to push for Bush's side, asking if people think it was okay for Bush to spy to make the country safer. I asked the question differently:
. Some have said that President Bush has violated the law and the Constitution with an illegal wiretapping operation against American citizens. They say that there is absolutely no reason the president had to wiretap without a court order when the law expressly allows the president to get a court order after the fact. The president says he is obligated to do everything in his power to protect the American people and this right is granted to him under the Constitution. Who are you more likely to agree with those who say that the president broke the law against wiretapping American citizens without a court order or the president who says the Constitution gives him the right to do whatever it takes to protect American citizens?
1. Those who say the president broke the law
2. The president
3. Neither/not sure
Panelists responded 51 to 42 percent that Bush broke the law. That breaks down to 88% of democrats, 11% of Republicans and 56% of independents. 100% of progressives and liberals say Bush broke the law. Here are some more demographics on groups saying Bush broke the law:
Armed forces families: 37%
NASCAR fans 22%
Weekly Walmart shoppers 32%
People who newer shop Walmart 82%
Whites 47%
African Americans 86%
On the Alito Question:
30. Do you support or oppose approving Samuel Alito as the next justice of the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor?
1. Support 2. Oppose 3. Not sure
48% support approving Alito. 46% oppose.
64% of men and 30% of women support approving Alito
90% of Republicans support approval
10% of Democrats support approval.
26% of born agains OPPOSE approval. Is the koolaid wearing off?
Zero percent of African Americans support approval.
79% of NASCAR fans and 71% of Libertarians support approval
It gets worse for support of the fillibuster in PA. The polls won't persuade Santorum and Specter to change their positions. But the good news is by a margin of 55 to 39 people oppose the nuclear option.
6% of Democrats support the nuclear option.
77% of Republicans and 32% of independents support it.
Some last details...
This question was a pleasant surprise.
How closely are you following the story of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his connection with members of Congress?
1. Very closely 2. Somewhat closely 3. Not closely 4. Not sure
Answers one and two garnered responses of 40% and 42%
The sum of 83% even applies to NASCAR fans.
And finally, we get to corruption. Here's the question.
- Who do you think is more corrupt, if at all, Republicans or Democrats?
- Republicans 2. Democrats 3. Both equally 4. Neither 5. Not sure
The overall answer is Republicans 48% Democrats 9%, and yes, this combines democrats and republicans. You see, 83% of Democrats are corrupt, but only 1% of Democrats think the Democratic party is corrupt. But 21 % of Republicans think Democrats are corrupt and 6 percent think Republicans are corrupt.
But that leaves out a huge statistic. 71% of Republicans chose item 3, that both parties are equally corrupt.
Add that number to the 6% and you get an astounding fact. 77% of Republicans think that Republicans are corrupt. Oh, the numbers for Democrats add up that 92% of Republicans think that Democrats are corrupt and 98% of Democrats think Republicans are corrupt.
Compare the 77% of republicans who think their party is corrupt to the 16% of Democrats who think their own party is corrupt. Are the Republicans so cynical that they just think eveyone is corrupt, so it's okay to be corrupt? Or are the Democrats naively fooling themselves that their politicians are squeaky clean?
Those are questions for another poll.
Meanwhile, I'll be publishing more reports on findings of the poll on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Tomorrow I'm travelling east to west coast to run my meetings on Story, Optimal Functioning and Brain Biofeedback.
Rob Kall,
editor, OpEdNews.com