Latest YouGov Polling Results: Mixed News All Around

Seems it took a very detailed new 2016 Presidential poll to get me out of hiding and posting again...

Some background real quick. The good folks at YouGov and The Economist conducted this poll. There were 2000 respondents, with a margin of error of +/-2.9, and was conducted via web-based surveys from February 24-27. 

https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/02/28/3-4-republican-primary-voters-now-expect-trump-nom/

What I want to do is dig out some interesting highlights I found in the polling data that may NOT get much coverage in the media (generally lazy folks when it comes to statistics).

Reuters Rolling Presidential Poll -- 17 November 2015

Sanders Gaining on Clinton in Iowa

Today a new Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll was released and for the Democratic side of the race, it's a mixed bag.

For Hillary Clinton, the bad news is that her lead in the state is fast disappearing, down to just 37% support among Democrats polled.

She does get one small piece of good news: 61% of those Democrats polled don't find her email scandal important. Though if that really is the case, what is the cause of her slipping support among Iowa Democrats?

For Senator Bernie Sanders, his insurgent candidacy is gaining more and more steam in the early states, with Sanders polling 30%, just seven points behind Hillary Clinton. Further, the majority of Sanders' supporters are doing so because they truly believe in his ideas and aren't just doing so because his name isn't Clinton.

Good to see that the Democratic side of the race isn't getting stale and boring in wake of the GOP's turbulent race for the top..

Iowa Poll: Clinton leads, but Sanders draws near

Here is the actual polling data:

http://www.gannett-cdn.com/LDSN/desmoines/PDF/iowa-poll-study-2125-methodology-aug31.pdf

Latest CNN/ORC Poll: Can you stop the Donald?

Latest CNN/ORC poll via PollingReport.com

#SOSStrawPoll at Iowa State Fair Results: Bernie Leads!

One of the benefits/irritations of being from Iowa is that every four years you get to explain why the Iowa State Fair is all over the national news.

Because of a little thing called the Iowa Caucus, which will be early next year, and is the first-in-the-nation vote for the presidential candidates from both parties. 

And one of the "attractions" at this year's State Fair is an informal (and I would assume, "unscientific") poll taken by Iowa's Secretary of State. As of Saturday night, over 2000 participants from the State Fair have taken part in the poll and here are the results:

The obvious bit that jumps out at your from this poll is Bernie Sanders leader over Hillary Clinton and also the fact that far more votes for Republican candidates have taken place than for the Democrats.

However, I have to mention that this is apparently an unscientific poll and thus should be taken with a rather large grain of salt...

Interesting results nonetheless..

BREAKING: Sanders Leads Clinton in Latest NH Poll!

Rather striking that the same day the FBI inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server turned up at least one email with "top secret" information, also happens to be the day a new poll comes out of New Hampshire showing Clinton losing the lead for the Democratic nomination..

Specifically, this new poll comes from the Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald and show Senator Bernie Sanders taking a 44-37 lead over Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

The main hesitation point I would offer concerning this poll is its small survey size: only 442 participants.

Whether Clinton's falling poll numbers are connected to her ongoing scandal over her questionable* use of government email is of course up for conjecture, but it's damn unfortunate timing..if you're working for the Clinton campaign that is.

* = In other words, activity that would get literally ANYONE ELSE FIRED

New Bloomberg/Des Moines Register Poll: Walker Leads crowded GOP Field

A new poll conducted by Bloomberg News and the Des Moines Register shows just how wide the GOP field of candidates for 2016 really is...

A few stats to keep in mind when reading the results of this poll:

• 402 Iowans participated in the GOP side of this poll.
• Those polled are "likely caucus-goers", meaning they are folks likely to participate in the Iowa Caucus this time next year. 
• Poll was conducted between 26-29 January.

The big "winner" of the GOP side of the poll is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, being the first choice of 15% of those polled. Given his recent performance at the "Freedom Summit" held by Iowa Congressman Steve King earlier this week, this results points to Walker getting his message across to those who walked the summit or followed it in conservative media.

Other solid "honorable mentions" include Senator Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee (who remains quite popular in Iowa even today, 7 years after his caucus win in the 2008).

Also of interest is that Mitt Romney, who quite publicly withdrew from the GOP field yesterday, was the first choice of 13% of those polled. Not bad for a candidate who lost in the Iowa caucus the last two election cycles (though only by a hair this last time around). With his exit, that puts a lot of points up for grabs.

Me being something of a numbers-guys (my day job), I wanted to see the actual poll results for myself to see if there any other interesting tidbits that didn't make it in Bloomberg's article, and sure enough I did.

Here are a few of these "tidbits":

• Among the likely Democratic caucus-goers, when asked if the GOP did win the White House in 2016, which of their candidates would be the best leaders, Chris Christie (20%), Jeb Bush (19%) and Mitt Romney (15%) came out on top.
• Mike Huckabee has the highest overall favorable-rating of the GOP field at 66%, with Rand Paul (64%), Rick Perry (64%), and Scott Walker (60%)  right behind him.
• However, Scott Walker has the highest "Very Favorable" rating by those polled at 32%.
• Of the much-talked candidates in the media, Jeb Bush and Christie are definitely struggling, with favorable-rating below 50% (46% and 36% respectively).
• On a personally satisfying note, waste-of-oxygen Donald Trump received an overall favorable-rating of just 26% (good to see I'm in good company with my fellow Iowans).
• When you take Mitt Romney out of the race, the poll does not show any one candidate getting a large boost in overall support. 

We are roughly one year away from the Iowa Caucuses and as political "veterans" and Iowans well know, what the GOP field looks like today could change is the blink of an eye.

For the moment though, Governor Scott Walker is probably feeling pretty good about his efforts for far...

What's Wrong with Congress Today: Congressman Pleads Guilty to Tax Faud, Refuses to Resign House Seat

First, I want to say kudos to RealClearPolitics' Caitlin Huey-Burns for the informative article that inspired this post...

We are often berated with polls showing just how unpopular Congress is to the vast majority of Americans, but then again, few President's have much luck getting a majority of Americans to give them a proverbial 'thumbs up' for how their doing at their jobs either. So why the fuss?

The sheer scale of the public's disapproval of Congress is what should really catches folks' attention.

In a report released by the good number-crunchers at Gallup last week, 2014 was found to be the second to worst year for congressional approval since 1974. Just for those keeping score back home, only 2013 was a worse year for Congress. On average, Congress' approval rating for 2014 was just 15% (based on roughly a dozen polls taken since January 2014).

Now, before we get into WHY these numbers are so low, let's address one possible complaint out there about such polls. A lot of folks reading this are probably thinking, "so what, Congress has always been horribly unpopular".

Not true as it turns (something that surprised even me!)..

Also per the good folks at Gallup, while Congress has only rarely has the approval of a majority of Americans (occurring during the years immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks), they regularly had yearly average approval in the 35-50% range during the mid to latter-half of the 1990s.

There were also a few years where their ratings were as terrible as the last few years (1979 and 1992 specifically), they have never before been so consistently low year after year as they have been recently.

But here's what the scary truth is: Many in Congress couldn't care less.

How do I know that? Because of stories like that inspired this post today on RealClearPolitics.

Rep. Grimm of New York (R) has recently pleaded GUILTY to a felony tax fraud charge and also issued a "statement of facts" that acknowledges guilt in several other related charges (ranging from lying under oath to hiring undocumented immigrants), carrying a possible prison sentence of up to 36 months.

BUT he doesn't feel at this time that he could resign he newly re-elected House seat anytime soon.

That's right folks, this guy was just re-elected (rather comfortably I might add) to another 2-year term in Congress. What's worse is that these charges were known during much of the campaign and were (not surprisingly) used by his Democratic opponent in attack ads, but were not enough to scare off his constituents from voting..

Even with all these potentially damning legal charges against him during an election year, this former FBI agent won re-election by a 13 point margin.

So, wins re-election with 20 criminal charges filed against him, pleads guilty to one felony charge and de facto admits to the other 19 charges just 6 weeks after the election (convenient as hell), but thinks he is perfectly able and obligated to continue serving in Congress for the next 2 years.

THAT...is your tax dollars at work folks.

Dirtbags like Rep. Grimm are I fear, not the exception BUT the rule. Just as we saw in Texas' now infamous District Attorney-DUI showdown, regardless of party affiliation, many politicians in America today seem to be think they are ENTITLED to that cushy seat the voters have put them (whether directly or indirectly), illegal activities be damned.

What's potentially even worse is that such a large majority of congressional district voters seemed perfectly OK with looking past their charges during his campaign. Was it a "better the devil you know" situation or just blame complacency on the voters in his district?

Either way, just goes to show that some politicians will try to get away with just about anything to win your vote and sadly, far too many of us are just along with it, which makes US part of what's wrong with Congress today..

DISCLAIMER:

All comments and/or opinions expressed in the above work are purely those of the author unless otherwise noted and do not represent that opinions/positions of any political or non-political organization or the Department of the Defense. Any/all distribution of this work MUST contain this disclaimer. 

Des Moines Register Pollster Gets Flak for latest Poll

Not too surprising, the latest Des Moines Register poll released this past week, which showed GOP candidate Joni Ernst 7 points ahead of Democrat Bruce Braley, has been treated with some suspicion and criticism over the last few days.

The brunt of this flak has been directed at pollster J. Ann Selzer, but she seems to be taking it all in stride...


Des Moines Register pollster on criticism of Senate numbers

Odds looking good for GOP with 5 Days to Go- FiveThirtyEight Politics

For those who don't know what FiveThirtyEight is, you really are missing out on one of the best sources out there for solid political metrics...

What are political metrics you ask? Simple: Polling Data. 

Normally, polling data isn't terribly exciting stuff (unless you're a nerd for numbers like myself), but world-famous pollster Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight is one of the best in the business and does so in a way that is, thankfully, presented in such a way that makes it fairly easy to understand for wonks and everyday folks alike. 

Without going into too much depth, FiveThirtyEight compiles information from many hundreds of polls across the nation and in this election cycle, focusing primarily on the odds of which major party will gain or retain control of the United States Senate. 

Now, I invite you to take a gander at today's latest update at the FiveThirtyEight's site giving the current odds of which party will come out victorious in next week's elections...

Though if you're a die-hard Democrat and are at all squeamish, might not be the best idea..

FiveThirtyEight Politics

2 Scenarios for Tuesday's Vote- RealClearPolitics

Kudos to RealClearPolitics's Sean Trende for an interesting hypothetical piece on what the election results for next Tuesday could end up being..

Two Scenarios for Tuesday

Pathetic Partisans Are Taking Over, by the Numbers via Pew Research Center

In my seconding posting from the Pew Research Center, we feature an article concerning how politically polarized the nation has become over the last decade or so.

I will leave the exact numbers to the good folks at PRC, but here's the short version:

While we often hear a great deal in the news about how politically polarized the nation has become, but it's always nice to see some numbers to back up that idea, and the numbers are not good.

Overall, the percentage of Americans who identify as being strongly liberal and strongly conservative have grown over the last decade or so, thus reducing the percentage of Americans who are in the middle (specifically, folks who swing left & right on a fairly equal number of issues). See this great graphic below to illustrate:

Mind you, while having the numbers from the PRC is helpful, we've already seen the signs of this polarization for years now. Here are few examples:

1. Tea Party- The largely successful rise of the Tea Party movement has, for better or worse, forced the GOP to move farther to the right than they traditional were before and while there is some resistance to this (the current "Establishment vs Tea Party" battle we are seeing within the GOP).

2. Death of the Blue Dogs- "Blue Dogs" was the common name for members of the Democratic party that while being largely loyal to their party, had some conservative views (they were generally lock-step with the Democrats on economic issues, but were socially conservative to varying degrees). Before the 2010 elections, there 54 members of the House of Representatives that belonged to this congressional coalition, but only 26 members "survived" the election. This coalition was weakened further in the 2012 elections and whether this coalition will survive the next few election cycles is hard to say..

3. Death of Compromise- As any American with a basic knowledge of American history knows, this nation's government was founded on the concept of compromise and without compromise, the Constitution would never have come into existence. Compromise today however, is seen by both sides are simply giving in to the other side (even if your side is actually getting something out of it), and is often used as political ammunition by the extremes of both parties to squeeze out those who dare advocate such a thing.

Now this sentiment isn't necessarily new, but the strength and pervasiveness of it has grown a great deal over the years. Nobody likes to compromise, but in the past it was always seen as a "necessary evil" to keep the government functioning and get things done.

It's not to say that ALL compromises are good, but to say that ALL compromise with the other side is bad is not only infantile, it's caused our government to grind to halt more times in recent years that in the decades that preceded. Today, the Senate Democrats are afraid to compromise with the GOP because they think it makes them look weak, even if they are the majority, and the same is true of Speaker Boehner in the House. Because of this, it seems that every major piece of legislation is cause for a huge partisan battle that will literally drag on for weeks, months, and even years.

Further, the lack of will for compromise has caused the two major parties to resort to extreme tactics to get their agendas passed because they refuse to work with the other side. Harry Reid has made quite a career of circumventing his GOP counterparts in the Senate, and while this makes him an effective Majority Leader int he Senate, it grows distrusts and outright hatred towards him by the GOP (with good reason)..

So is there a solution to this increasing polarization? Personally, I suspect the answer is no. With both parties being dominated and terrorized by the "Pathetic Partisans" on their extremes (thus making them the majority in time), the likelihood of them cooperating for the better of the whole nation falls with every election cycle...

Kudos again to the Pew Research Center for these great numbers!

DISCLAIMER:

All comments and/or opinions expressed in the above work are purely those of the author unless otherwise noted and do not represent that opinions/positions of any political or non-political organization or the Department of the Defense. Any/all distribution of this work MUST contain this disclaimer.