A new Gallup poll provides more proof that the liberal fixation on gun control and immigration reform isn’t even on the Top Ten list of the most important issues for Americans:
This suggests to me that one way to inject issues 1-10 into the deliberations about gun control and immigration is for Republicans in Congress to ask rhetorically, “Why are we discussing restricting guns and legalizing illegal immigrants when 1) 86 percent of Americans want us help create jobs and help the economy grow, 2) 81 percent want us to make the government work more efficiently and fix our schools, and 3) 77 percent want us to address the financial problems with Social Security and Medicare?”
Rather than letting Democrats pick the two issues that most divide Republicans, GOP members of Congress should be picking issues that divide the opposition. Any of Gallup’s Top Ten are natural strong points for Republicans, and especially conservatives. All they need to do is pick one and start reframing the debate.
A very well-written report at the Huffington Post details how a few decisions by Gallup administrators caused the venerable polling company to miss key pockets of support for President Barack Obama in the run-up to last November’s presidential election.
Going into Election Day, Gallup had Mitt Romney leading Obama 49-48, but the actual result was 51-47. According to analysis by HuffPost, the reason for the bad call was because Gallup’s polling methods failed to keep up with how Americans are using their telephones. This is potentially a huge problem because calling via telephone is the primary method for contacting people for public opinion polls.
Since the number of people screening calls by using unlisted landlines and/or cell phones has risen dramatically over the last few years, polling firms who fail to find a way around the barriers run the risk of missing large segments of voters who are avoiding unsolicited calls.
It just so happens that people using unlisted numbers only (i.e. not cell phones as well) planned to vote for Obama last year by a margin of 58 to 36 percent. But because Gallup’s methodology didn’t correctly measure this subpopulation, the company never got a chance to put this data in their polls. Consequently, Gallup’s opinion polls did not accurately reflect the intentions of the voting public which ultimately influenced who won the presidency.
Gallup is no stranger to embarrassing poll predictions. The famous “Dewey Defeats Truman” headline from 1948 was based on polling data that stopped being collected two weeks before Election Day. The thought was why keep polling if the predictions haven’t changed? Of course, that decision didn’t account for the voters who broke late for Truman and made the false headline iconic.
Gallup rebounded from the fiasco to become arguably the world’s most reliable polling agency. As the process of regaining that crown unfolds, this new breakdown is a good reminder to heed the words of the Gipper – “Trust, but verify” when it comes to public opinion polls.
According to a Gallup poll released today, fewer Americans watched yesterday’s inaugural ceremony or news coverage of it than they did George W. Bush’s second inaugural in 2005. Only 38% said that they watched yesterday’s ceremony, down from 40% in 2005, and only 27% “watched, listened to, or read news reports about the inauguration ceremonies” yesterday versus 33% in 2005. Moreover, Americans are less hopeful based on what they read or heard about Obama’s second inauguration than they were after Bush’s. Just “37% of Americans said they are now more hopeful about the next four years after Monday’s presidential inauguration ceremonies,” compared to 43% in 2005. Some 27% said that yesterday’s inauguration made them “less hopeful,” two points worse than in 2005.
Remember the alleged “crisis” that demanded ObamaCare? To hear Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their minions, that crisis demanded that we do something, anything, even if it meant passing a bill before finding out what was in it.
The overwhelming majority of Americans apparently never got the memo. According to Gallup, fully 82% of Americans rate their healthcare “excellent” or “good,” while 11% of the remaining 18% rate their care “fair,” and only 5% say “poor” (2% said “no opinion” or “not applicable”). As Gallup notes, “That combined excellent/good percentage has remained fairly steady at around 80% since 2001,” when polling on this question began.
According to a new Gallup poll, a majority of Americans now blame President Obama for the current state of the U.S. economy. By a 53% to 47% margin, surveyed adults say that Obama shares a “great deal/moderate amount” of blame, while they also believe that George W. Bush continues to share blame by a 69% to 30% margin. But notice something interesting. For all the talk of hyper-partisanship from Republicans, the primary reason Bush’s numbers look worse is that Republican survey respondents split 50% to 50% on whether Bush shares some blame. Democrats, in contrast, were far less willing to admit that their guy Obama shares blame, disagreeing by a 75% to 25% margin. Independents by a 60% to 40% margin say that Obama shares some blame.
Here’s another noteworthy fact. For all of Obama’s talk that he and his wasteful trillions of “stimulus” spending saved our economy from “the next Great Depression,” government economic figures show that we actually began our cyclical recovery before Bush had left office. That’s a point that must be highlighted to voters as we approach a pivotal 2012 election in which Americans must choose between two governmental philosophies. But in the meantime, at least most of us now recognize Obama’s role in our continuing economic struggles.
According to a new poll from Gallup, Americans rate the “Computer Industry” most positively among 25 business and government entities, with the “Internet Industry” close behind. That’s no surprise – few innovations in human history have transformed our lives as rapidly and profoundly as the tech sector.
But here’s an irony. The federal government, which constantly interferes with tech sector innovation via such bureaucratic assaults as so-called “Net Neutrality” and interference with the private proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, is rated least favorably by Americans. Only 17% of Americans rate the federal government positively, which 63% rate it negatively. In contrast, the computer industry is rated positively by a 72% to 10% margin, and the Internet industry is rated positively by a 56% to 16% ratio.
Perhaps we’d all be better off if the tech sector began monitoring the federal government, rather than the converse. It certainly appears that most Americans would agree.
President Obama has fallen to a new low in public approval as measured by Gallup, with only 39% approval and 54% disapproval. Even more troubling for Obama and his supporters, no President has won reelection with ratings this low at this point in their tenure.
According to Gallup, President Truman’s approval/disapproval stood at 55%/29% at approximately this stage, President Eisenhower possessed a positive 71%/16% ratio, President Nixon’s approval outweighed his disapproval by a 49%/38% margin, President Reagan remained barely underwater with a 43%/46% ratio, President Clinton possessed a 46%/43% positive edge and President George W. Bush held a positive margin of 59%/37%. All of these Presidents won reelection, and it should be added that President Reagan, unlike President Obama, was on a steadily upward approval trajectory that had him enjoying a 53%/37% approval surplus just three months later in November 1983. The nation’s economy was accelerating throughout 1983 following the arrival of his tax cuts that January, whereas our current economy continues to stagnate. Additionally, although President Kennedy was assassinated before he could face reelection, he enjoyed a 56%/29% approval edge at this point, and his Vice President Lyndon Johnson won in 1964.
In terms of Presidents who did not win reelection, President Ford actually enjoyed a 45%/37% approval balance, whereas President Carter found himself in a negative 30%/55% hole, while President George H. W. Bush still maintained his post-Gulf War approval rating of 74%/19%.
So while Obama can state that he isn’t as bad as Carter, he cannot point to a single instance in which a President with his current Gallup approval/disapproval margin won reelection.
Michael Barone and our own Quin Hillyer, among others, remind us that conservatives are winning the broader debt limit debate. But that’s not the only battle in which we conservatives are winning.
A Gallup survey released today shows that we also continue to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. According to the poll, more Americans again identify themselves as “conservative” (41%) than “moderate” (36%), and almost twice as many call themselves conservative than “liberal” (21%). For two decades now, conservatives and moderates have battled for the plurality, but each could consistently claim twice as many adherents as liberalism. For the third consecutive year, however, conservatives can claim greater numbers than moderates.
That certainly isn’t the sort of change that Barack Obama might have predicted on January 20, 2009.
Here’s more encouraging news: Americans are “getting it” on the issue of federal deficits and debt. According to a new Gallup survey, an overwhelming 73% to 22% majority blames excess spending for the deficit, not insufficient taxation. Barack Obama and his liberal apologists seek to blame “tax cuts for the rich” and insufficient revenues as the problem. But as illustrated by the Heritage Foundation’s newly-released 2011 Budget Chart Book, our budget would still be approximately balanced if spending merely returned to early 2000s levels. Does any serious person contend that government was too small in the first half of the 2000s, that government didn’t spend enough, that the poor and hungry were somehow cast out on the cold streets, that bureaucrats went unpaid? Of course not. The problem is explosive spending growth. Obama oversaw an 84% increase in domestic discretionary spending, including his failed “stimulus,” in just his first two years.
Fortunately, Americans see through his attempt to demand even more taxpayer dollars to feed the insatiable leviathan he hopes to enlarge.
In fact, it’s not even close. Using aggregated data compiled from 148 nations during the years 2007 through 2010, survey subjects were asked, “Ideally, if you had the opportunity, would you like to move permanently to another country, or would you prefer to continue living in this country? To which country would you like to move?” The United States was the runaway leader, with more than three times as many respondents as the next closest countries (Canada and the United Kingdom). The U.S. led with 24%, Canada and the U.K. were far behind at 7% each, with France at 6% and Spain at 4%. In fact, America was named as the top potential destination by as many people as the U.K., France, Spain, Germany and Italy combined. So much for that supposedly superior European model.
Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said that we mustn’t allow a “crisis to go to waste” in foisting such things as ObamaCare upon an unwilling nation. But what if there’s no “crisis” in the first place?
This month, Gallup released a scientific survey that is a critical component in any health care policy discussion. In what must come as a devastating shock for those who defend ObamaCare, an astonishing 82% of Americans rate their health care as “good” or “excellent.” Some 40% place their health care in the “excellent” category, which exceeds the previous high of 38% and the long-term average of 34%. Even those who don’t possess health insurance (which must be distinguished from actual health care) rate their health care “good” or “excellent” by a 53% majority.
Clearly, there is no health care “crisis,” only a lot of ObamaCare “waste.”
In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses a new Gallup poll on how the American people view the federal government. Here’s a hint: The three most common phrases used were “too big,” “confused” and “corrupt.”
We’re now exactly two weeks from the long-awaited 2010 Congressional midterm election and report card for President Obama. By now, the question is simply how high the expletive decibel level will ascend on election night inside the White House.
On that front, a Gallup poll brings news every bit as chilly and cloudy for Democrats as today’s Washington, D.C. weather. In fact, the poll shows a high for Republicans that even 1994 didn’t bring. According to polling completed this past weekend, Republicans now possess a 5-point lead in voter preference, 48% to 43%. And here’s the really bad news for Democrats: that’s not among likely voters, but among registered voters. (Among likely voters, the GOP lead expands to 11% or 17%, depending on whether the “high turnout” or “low turnout” polling model is applied.)
Let’s put that historic lead in perspective. In 2002, the party holding the White House hadn’t added both House and Senate seats in its first mid-term since 1934, but the supposedly failed President Bush broke almost 70 years of precedent by adding 8 House and 2 Senate seats. Even that year, however, Democrats held a 9-point polling lead in mid-October among registered voters. And during the famous 1994 election season that rejected two years of Clintonian rule alongside a Democratic House and Senate, Republicans only held a 3-point lead on October 18-19, which switched back to a 3-point Democrat lead by October 22-25. If this is any indication, Democrats aren’t going to need seat belts this year, they’re going to need airbags.
![As you know, there are many different issues on which Congress and the president can focus their time and attention. Please tell me if you think, at this time, Congress and the president should make each of the following a top priority, a high priority, a medium priority, a low priority, or not a priority at all. How about -- [RANDOM ORDER]? May 2013 results](http://sas-origin.onstreammedia.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/8krgeos2qkmgtv41jszqpw.gif)
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