Polling on Iraq: Sometimes the wording doesn't matter

Polling on the Iraq war inevitably become entangled with the politics of the war, with partisans seizing on results that support their preferences. This was vividly demonstrated this week by a Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll conducted for The Moriah Group, a Chattanooga-based strategic communications and public affairs firm. (N=800, MOE=3.5%, conducted 2/5-7/07.) The POS press release is here. POS is one of the top Republican polling firms in the country.

After a New York Post story on the poll a variety of blogs on the left and right picked up on the results. See (here, here, here and here.) The Media Matters site posted an extensive critique of the poll and coverage of it here.

The ironic bit is that the poll isn't far out of line with other polling that has asked somewhat similar questions, yet those previous polls have not touched off a flurry of debate about opinion on the war. Rather, the strongly worded interpretation of the results, both in the POS press release and in the New York Post story, has provoked a reaction out of line with the novelty of these finding.

A further irony is that the POS survey uses wording for some options that seems likely to draw opinion towards those alternatives rather than others, and yet the results are only modestly different from previous polling. Whatever bias may exist in the wording, it did not produce results dramatically different from others we have seen in the last three months.

How questions are phrased, including about Iraq, can certainly affect the results. For comparison then, it helps if we can look at questions that pose reasonably similar alternatives, even if worded a bit differently. Let's look at how the recent polling has approached the question of what to do in Iraq. Eight recent polls plus POS have asked questions that address the choice among "immediate withdrawal", "withdrawal by a certain date", or "maintain troops until Iraq stabilizes." Some of these also include an option to "increase troop levels".

The POS question is

Which one of the following statements regarding the US involvement in Iraq do you MOST agree with...

1) The US should immediately withdraw its troops from Iraq.

2) Whether Iraq is stable or not, the US should set and hold to a strict timetable for withdrawing troops.

3) While I don’t agree that the US should be in the war, our troops should stay there and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security to their country.

4) The Iraq War is the front line in the battle against terrorism and our troops should stay there and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security to their country.

(The numbering of options is mine, for clarity.) It is a reasonable criticism of this question that options 3 and 4 offer elements that might be expected to draw respondents. Option 3 invites an expression of opposition to the war while supporting continued troop presence, and option 4 links the war explicitly to the war on terror as a rationale for maintaining troops. At the least, we might think this wording would increase support for the third and fourth options.

Other polls have phrased things differently while getting at the same policy options. For example, Fox puts the question as

Thinking about the situation in Iraq, do you think the United States should:

1. pull out all troops immediately,

2. pull out all troops gradually over the next year,

3. pull out after Iraqi troops are capable of taking over or

4. send more troops?

Here option 1 is essentially the same as the POS option 1. Option 2 is worded differently but amounts to the same policy option of withdrawal over a fixed period of time. And options 3 and 4 together are an expression in support of continued presence until the Iraqi's are able to take over. (One can argue if more troops is the same as continued presence, but I'm willing to argue that in this context.)

Gallup has offered a similar set of four options:

Here are four different plans the US (United States) could follow in dealing with the war in Iraq. Which one do you prefer--

1. withdraw all troops from Iraq immediately,

2. withdraw all troops by January 2008--that is, in 12 months' time,

3. withdraw troops, but take as many years to do this as are needed to turn control over to the Iraqis, or

4. send more troops to Iraq?

Again there are some variations in wording, but a similar thrust.

The George Washington University Battleground poll, conducted jointly by the Republican Tarrance Group and Democratic Lake Research Partners uses this wording:

As you have probably heard, there has been a lot of debate over the past few months about what the United States should do about its troops that are currently stationed in Iraq. I am going to read you four proposals on this issue. Please tell me which one comes closest to your own....

1. The US should begin immediately withdrawing all troops from Iraq. This is now a job for Iraqi forces to handle.

2. The US should set a date certain, no more than one year from now, when all troops be withdrawn from Iraq. This process should begin with some troops coming home immediately.

3. The US should keep its forces in Iraq until our military leaders there confirm that the situation in Iraq is stable enough that extremist forces will not be able to seize control once US troops leave.

4. The US should temporarily increase the number of troops in Iraq to help stabilize the situation more quickly.

Finally the Pew Research Center asks two questions:

Do you think the US (United States) should keep military troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized, or do you think the US should bring its troops home as soon as possible?

(If bring troops home as soon as possible): Should the US remove all troops from Iraq immediately, or should the withdrawal of troops be gradual over the next year or two?

Combining the Pew responses we get three categories for 1) immediately, 2) within a year or two, and 3) keep troops until stabilized.

The variations in question wording mean exact comparison is not possible, but the categories are reasonably similar in the policy options they offer.

For comparison, I combine the last two options of the POS survey. Both say we should continue a troop presence in Iraq until the country is stabilized though they offer different rationales for that presence. Similarly, I combine those options in other surveys that say we should remain until the situation is stable or we should send more troops. Again either option implies a continued presence. This gives three policy options that are comparable across all nine polls, regardless of wording:

1) Immediate withdrawal

2) Withdrawal within a specified time frame

3) Continued presence until Iraq is stabilized

The graph at the top shows the results of this. While there is variation across the polls it is modest compared to the stability of results. The immediate withdrawal option wins from 12-21% support, and averages 16.5%. Between 28% and 40% favor withdrawal by some deadline, with an average of 34.1% choosing this option. And those favoring continued presence in Iraq range from 42% to 53%, and average 45.5%.

The POS survey is a little higher (at 50%) for the combined options 3 and 4, but still only 4.5% above the average for this question. (The average is 44.9% without the POS poll.)

The POS result of 17% for immediate withdrawal is close to the 16.5% average, and POS's 32% for withdrawal by a deadline compares to an average of 34.1% preferring that option. (Removing POS from the averages results in 16.4% and 34.4%, not an appreciable change.)

So we return to the irony. Despite question wording that seems extreme compared to the other pollsters here, POS got at most a 5 point increase in support for keeping troops in Iraq until the country is stable. And the POS question produced very little difference from the average results for immediate or timed withdrawal. So critics who have jumped on the question wording bandwagon may be right about the wording, but they are substantially wrong about the effect.

One of the most annoying aspects of question wording effects is that sometimes they are large when you don't expect it, and sometimes they are small even when you are sure they should be large.

It is similarly ironic that those who delighted in the POS results were oblivious to the fact that there was not really any new news here. Apparently other pollsters from the "drive-by media" and elsewhere had been reporting substantially the same results for a while now.

Finally, the results of this question are: 49% withdraw immediately or by a deadline, and 50% stay until Iraq is stable. I'd say a 49-50 split isn't a strong indication of overwhelming support for either side. (There are other questions in the survey that address different issues-- some are more supportive of the war and some are less. Towards the high end is "I support finishing the job in Iraq, that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people" 57% agree. But also: "Iraq will never become a stable democracy", 60% agree. Picking which results you like while ignoring the ones you don't may be good politics but it is bad polling analysis.)

If we phrase the question differently do we get different answers? Sometimes. I could illustrate that with other questions about Iraq easily. Opinion about the war is complex, with shifting coalitions of supporters and opponents depending on how questions slice the policy options. And sometimes choice of wording plays a substantial role in that. But not this time.

Pres08: Fox Poll, Party ID and Candidate Support

Last week I wrote about the new Fox poll on support for six presidential candidates. Fox asked if you would "definitely" vote for, "might" vote for, or "would not vote for under any circumstances" each of the candidates. The question is framed in general and offered to all respondents, so the frame is in a general, rather than primary, election. This speaks to the electability issue.

Today I follow up on that post with a look at how candidate support varies by party identification. Not surprisingly Republicans are more likely to say they would vote for Republicans and not for Democrats and vice versa for Democratic partisans. By looking within partisan camps the questions throw light on how partisans may view the desirability of alternative nominees.

The plot above puts the previous results in partisan perspective. While there is a strong partisan bias, not surprisingly, there are still surprisingly few respondents who say they would "definitely vote for" candidates of their own party.

On the Republican side, more Republican partisans say they would "definitely" vote for Giuliani than would "never" vote for him. But this is not so for either McCain or Gingrich (and by a wide margin for the latter.) Among Democrats, a plurality would "definitely" vote for Clinton rather than "never". In this Clinton has the largest margin among the six candidates. Obama's "definite" supports only barely exceed his "never" critics (among Democrats!), and Edwards falls well short of a plurality of "definite" support.

As we've seen in previous analyses, Clinton is the most polarizing of the six candidates. Republicans respond 79% "Never" and less than 5% "definitely", with only 15% saying they "might" vote for her. Among Democrats, only 17% say never while 32% are definite supporters, with 48% saying they might vote for her. While the potential support is large, the actual opposition is very strong. Independents fall between, 39% never, 19% definite and 40% might. This puts Clinton solidly in the lead among her partisans, but with very strong opposition among Republicans. No surprise there.

Neither Giuliani nor McCain draw the same strength of Democratic opposition that Clinton does from Republicans. To be sure between 55% and 60% of Democrats say they would never support either of these, but that leaves a substantial number of Dems who would at least consider one of these Republican contenders. Giuliani does relatively better among Independents, with 30% saying they would never support, and 12% definite.

McCain on the other hand faces more opposition from Independents than we might expect given his 2000 reputation for appealing to independents and Democrats. Among independents 42% said they would never vote for McCain, while only 7% said they definitely would. So a supposed strength of the McCain campaign looks in these data to be far from a source of confidence.

Former speaker Gingrich may yet emerge as a credible candidate, but his current polling does not support a belief that he would be a particularly strong candidate even among Republicans, and certainly not among independents or Democrats. As with all these early polls, much change can yet occur, so these results should not be interpreted as predictions of future outcomes. But they do show that Gingrich has much to accomplish if he is to win over supporters from both inside and outside his party.

The ratings of Barak Obama show relatively high "might" vote for responses, as we would expect from a relative newcomer to national politics. His very slight edge among Democrats leaves him with deficits among independents who remain persuadable, and Republicans who are as opposed to him as they are to Edwards but not so opposed as to Clinton.

Edwards, who has often been viewed in the press as an attractive candidate with positive images left over from his 2004 campaign does not come off so well in these data. Democrats are more opposed than supportive, and independents do not appear to be drawn to him at this point.

What about those who "might" vote for these candidates? How do they alter the positions?

The closer to the lower left corner the points are, the more respondents said they "might" vote for the candidates. In all six figures it is apparent that this represents a large segment of the population. These "persuadable" voters could certainly change the landscape as they make up their minds.

One way to look at this is to add the "mights" in with the "definite" supporters to see the MAXIMUM level of support for each candidate. The figure below does this.
























With the potential supporters added in, all candidates move close to the diagonal line, which is the limit of possible support, given the level of "never" responses. This doesn't change the relative ordering of the candidates on the opposition (vertical) dimension, but it shows potential growth in support for each. For candidates such as Obama and Giuliani the potential upside is great. For Gingrich it is most limited, while Clinton can benefit a lot among Democrats, not so much among independents and little among Republicans. McCain's potential is also substantial, though perhaps not as much as Giuliani's. Edwards falls between Obama and Clinton in potential.

Of course, this is the MAXIMUM gain for each candidate, and since not all of those who say they "might" vote for a candidate will in fact, the truth lies somewhat short of this rosiest of outcomes.

The partisan camps clearly align with their party's candidates, but the lack of overwhelming support within any camp clearly shows that this race is not solidly locked up within parties, let alone in the general election. And, we've yet to hear from those in single digits who will not stay there forever, if past elections are any indication. Stay tunes.

Would you vote for a (fill in the blank) for President?

More than any recent election, the 2008 presidential contest raises the issue of whether Americans are ready to vote for a ... (woman, black, Hispanic, Mormon) for president. In 1960 Kennedy's Catholicism was a key question. In 1984 Geraldine Ferraro gave us the possibility of a woman a "heart beat away", if not quite in the oval office. With at least four "group" members in the race this year, the question of what groups are acceptable and not is again before us.

The data are pretty clear that women and African-American's have gained acceptance, at least in the abstract. In data collected since 1956 by Gallup, and more recently by a variety of other pollsters, we can track changes over time to the question (as phrased by Gallup):

If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be ______, would you vote for that person?

Most pollsters use a similarly worded question. (Interestingly Gallup used "well qualified MAN" rather than "person" until the 1990s, except of course when asking about a female candidate.) The graph above shows trends in these questions for all groups and all pollsters I could find since the 1950s, 144 questions in all.

The striking effect of Kennedy's campaign and election is clear. While about 70 percent of the public said they would vote for a Catholic from 1955-1959, this jumped over 10 points following Kennedy's election. (62% said they would vote for a Catholic in 1940, the earliest poll I could find.) Since then it has gradually risen to a plateau in the mid-90s, though still slightly below the number comfortable voting for a "Baptist", the long time favorite in this graph.

Support for Jewish candidates has remained a bit below that for Catholics, maintaining a small but reliable gap. Interestingly, Kennedy's Catholicism may have helped increase acceptance for Jews as a side effect of the nation's consideration of religion in 1960. The upturn in acceptance of Jews as candidates tracks with the rise of Catholic acceptability in the early 1960s.

Mormon's may or may not have benefited from that movement as well. I could locate no questions about Mormon candidates prior to 1967 so we can't know what the trend was in the 1950s or early 1960s. In 1967, however, acceptance of Mormon candidates ran about 7 points behind that of Jews, and closer to 15 points behind Catholics. In the time since, there have only been two repetitions of the Mormon question (that I could find), and these two indicate stability through 2000 and a decline in 2007. With only 3 polls, it is very dangerous to conclude that there has been a real decline, or even to claim a very good estimate of the acceptability of a Mormon candidate. But given the little evidence that is available, Mormons clearly face more resistance from the public than Catholics or Jews (not to mention Baptists.) Governor Mitt Romney's campaign gives us an excellent chance to see if this resistance is primarily because voters haven't thought about it, and once confronted with an attractive candidate, as with Kennedy, will revise their opinions, or if this represents more strongly held suspicion of Mormons that will continue to register in the polls.

The one religiously defined group that should probably not jump in the presidential race is atheists. The public remains strongly opposed to putting non-believers in the White House. Despite some growth in tolerance of atheists this group still is acceptable to only just over 45% of the public. Homosexuals are the only group less acceptable than atheists, but that appears to have changed by 1999 when homosexual candidates gained acceptance by 59% of the public. (Again, beware the small number of polls that have asked about homosexuals. This is not a very reliable estimate, based on only four polls.)

The two groups that have moved most dramatically are not religiously defined. Women and blacks have moved from 50% or less support in 1955 to currently high acceptance rates. Blacks have in fact moved up to match Catholics and perhaps even Baptists in professed willingness to vote for a member of the group. Women were on a similar trajectory until recently. Since 2000 there has been some modest decline in acceptance of women candidates. It is possible that this is due to voters thinking of Hilary Clinton specifically in response to this question recently, raising a partisan bias, or it could be a fluke in the most recent half dozen polls. I've not located polls asking about support for an Hispanic candidate so not trend or other data are available on that for comparison.

The overall rise across most of these groups in willingness to vote for candidates from the group reflects some important changes in society over the past 50 years. The relative stratification of groups, however, is also generally stable. The order of acceptability--- Baptist, Catholic, Jew, Mormon and atheist--- has not shifted even as level of acceptance has risen. Women, blacks and perhaps homosexuals have seen dramatic rises, with the first two groups changing order with other groups. Still, the stratification remains clear, if reduced in magnitude. And some groups such as atheists and homosexuals remain well short of widespread acceptance as potential presidential candidates.

It is also worth noting that this measure of potential vote does not mean that in the actual choice these characteristics are irrelevant to voting decisions. Presented with an actual woman, black, Mormon, Jew or Hispanic, each of these categories may still produce a reduction in the probability of voting support. At least if the opponent is a Baptist male. It seems likely than only the election of presidents from these categories can assure us that such categories have become irrelevant in fact.

The Romney campaign offers the best opportunity for a natural experiment to see how malleable these perceptions may be. Note that the acceptance of Catholics did not increase until after the 1960 election. The last time the Catholic question was asked in Gallup data was December of 1959, and not again until August 1961. We are left to wonder if Kennedy increased acceptance during his nomination race and/or during the general election or if this change occurred only after he was elected president. Romney will have to overcome the resistance to Mormon candidates, and with the huge increase in polling, we should be able to use his race as an opportunity to learn something about how rapidly such attitudes can change, or not. Let's hope pollsters will monitor this question for us. Interesting social science, in any case.

Pres08: Willingness to vote for candidates

Fox/Opinion Dynamics has a nice new poll out tonight. One striking result is that NONE of the six leading candidates enjoys having more strong supporters than strong opponents. Fox asked:

Now I am going to read a list of possible candidates for the next presidential race. For each one, please tell me whether you would definitely vote for that candidate for president, if you might vote for that candidate, or if under no conditions would you vote for that candidate.

The "don't know" rate for all these candidates is pretty low, 10% or less.

The result, plotted above, shows that all six have considerably more voters saying they would never vote for the candidate than saying they definitely would vote for them. In this figure being towards the upper left is bad news, lower right is good news. As in previous polls, former Speaker Newt Gingrich fares worst among these candidates, with very substantial numbers saying they would not vote for him under any circumstances. The rest of the candidates are somewhat bunched together.

The further a candidate is from the diagonal line (or closer to the lower left corner) the more people said they "might" vote for them. (Recall the DK rate is both low and pretty even across candidates, so this is mostly a true statement.) Senator Clinton is the candidate with the fewest "might" vote for responses, but even in her case 34% said they would consider her. Obama shows the most room for growth with 45% saying "might" vote for him. The others range from 39-44% saying might.

So these front runners have a long way to go, and must all face stiff strong opposition from significant chunks of the electorate. Or put differently, those persuadable voters will matter a lot.

Bush Approval: Trend at 33.3%, a new low

(UPDATED 2/13/07: The new USAToday/Gallup Poll is in with a 37% approval rating, up from the 32% of the previous poll discussed here. This raises the trend estimate to 33.3%, still a new low point, but not as drastic as the 32.5% prior to the new poll. I've updated the title and added the updated Gallup plot above, but not changed the text below which is unaffected by this new result.)


























President Bush's approval ratings have fallen to 32% in the four most recent polls from CBS, AP, Harris and Gallup. After readings of 38% from Fox, 37% from Time and 39% from Democracy Corps (which uses "likely voters" rather than adults) helped boost the President's trend estimate a bit recently, this string of new polls at 32% has caused the estimate to sink well below previous all time lows, to the current 32.5%. This is well below the previous low from May 2006 at 34.0%. (Rumor has it that new polling will be out in a few hours that may improve the President's standing, or not. Check the morning papers.) (NOTE: USAToday/Gallup did come in at 37% based on their 2/9-11/07 poll, raising the trend estimate to 33.3%.)

The figures I'm posting here can also be seen at our Pollster.com comparison of all presidential approval polling here. The figures show how each recent poll has varied around the trend estimate. CBS has been running below trend, so the current reading of 32% is a move UP for CBS, but it only brings that poll to just below my current estimate.
























The Associated Press/Ipsos poll has generally tracked the trend pretty well, with six of the last eight polls within a point or so of the trend. Some earlier AP readings were consistently a bit below trend. This should remind us that polls can vary a bit over time in their relationship to the trend line.
























Harris has generally run a bit below trend, so the current reading is closer to the trend than is usual. Harris uses a four point, Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor rating system, rather than the more commonly used dichotomous Approve/Disapprove measure. This difference in question wording may play a role in Harris' "house effect." (Search labels for "house effects" for more on that.)
























Gallup does more approval polling than anyone and is on average just over a point above the trend. Some recent polling has reflected that, though three of the last seven Gallup readings have been right on trend.

The current downward trend in approval of the President reflects his inability to rally support for his Iraq troop increase decision along with increased criticism from a Democratic congress and more dissent from within his own party.

Given the randomness of polls, we should expect to see some new polling come in up to four or five points above the current trend, so as high as 36% or 37% approval. But if the current "true" approval rating is close to my estimate of 32.5%, we should also see some polling below 30% in the near future. So far there isn't much good news for the White House.

Party ID in States Shifted in 2006

Democrats gained an average of 3.4% and Republicans lost 3.0% in partisan identification between 2005 and 2006, according to a new Gallup estimate based on over 30,000 interviews conducted throughout 2006. Gallup aggregated polls throughout the year to create estimates of party identification at the state level, as they did in 2005 and previous years. Gallup's report of the results is here.

The plot above shows how uniform the shift in Democratic and Republican partisanship was across the states. The colors of the points reflect the Democratic minus Republican balance in 2005-- the darker the blue the more net-Democratic identifiers and the darker the red the more net-Republican identifiers. Light or pale points are closely balanced states, as of 2005. The size of the points is proportional to the size of the state.

There is no apparent pattern to the shifts in partisanship: regardless of partisanship or partisan balance in 2005, states shifted by about the same amount in 2006. Likewise, Republican losses shifted uniformly. The +3.4 percentage point shift for the Democrats, and the -3.0 point shift against the Republicans produced a net -6.4 point loss for the Republicans in the balance of partisanship. The lower left figure in the plot shows that independents shifted more or less randomly between 2005 and 2006.

These shifts could, in principle, represent a non-trivial gain for the Democratic party. Recall that after the 2004 election there was considerable talk in Republican circles of establishing an "enduring Republican majority", a goal that seemed within the party's grasp though certainly not assured. That hope is clearly out of reach at the moment.

Before Democrats go wild with joy, there remains a question about the electoral impact of these partisan shifts. Party identification is the strongest single predictor of vote choice at the individual level. But the shifts in partisanship in the Gallup data do not predict the shift in voting for the U.S. House in 2006.

The bottom right figure above shows that the Republican U.S. House vote shifted more or less uniformly across states as well. However, when we look at the relationship between party id shift and vote shift across states, there is no relationship at all, as seen in the figure below.























Controlling for both Democratic gains and Republican losses doesn't add to the relationship. So the conclusion here is that both partisanship and vote shifted against the Republican party in 2006, but the variation in shifts appears to have been essentially independent between partisanship and vote.

Democratic gains and Republican losses in partisanship may affect the 2008 prospects in the House (and other) elections. But in 2006, it appears both vote and partisanship responded to conditions in the country without a clear impact of changes in partisanship on changes in vote.

Pres08: Fox Poll's Favorable/Unfavorable Ratings

Fox News' new poll, completed 1/30-31/07, provides a new look at the favorable and unfavorable ratings of the leading presidential contenders. Rudy Giuliani continues to lead the pack in the balance of favorable to unfavorable ratings in the new Fox poll with 54% favorable to 24% unfavorable . John McCain enjoys a net-positive evaluation, though not as strongly positive as Giuliani, at 45%-29%. Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton strongly divides voters yet manages a 50%-44% net positive rating. Less well known John Edwards has an 8 point net positive (41%-33%) while Barack Obama has the best balance, 41%-20% but the largest number of voters unable to rate him (38%.)

Three political figures have net negative ratings in the Fox poll. Mitt Romney is the least well known among all the candidates and suffers a net negative rating of 11%-22%, but with 67% unable to rate. Newt Gingrich, who has adopted a wait-and-see approach to the presidential campaign, suffers a 22%-49% net negative, while Al Gore, who seems quite uninterested in the race, has a somewhat better but still net negative 39%-51%.

(For comparison, see my similar analysis of an early January CBS News poll here. That post also discusses the plots and how to read them in greater detail.)
























The extent to which partisans divide over the candidates is clear above. Hillary Clinton remains the most polarizing figure with strongly net negative views among Republicans, strongly positive views among Democrats, and a near balance yet net negative among independents. (The purple dot is independents, the black dot is the population as a whole, with the now conventional red for Republican and blue for Democrats.)

McCain and Giuliani do well among independents and even with Democrats. Gore and Gingrich in contrast both divide the electorate and manage net positives only among their own partisans. Edwards splits partisan camps, though not as strongly as Clinton and roughly balances the sides and among independents. Obama does quite well among independents, but is developing a Republican opposition. Romney remains a mystery to all partisan groups, which cluster and don't know him.

























There has been some movement in the Fox ratings, but the most recent prior poll varies a great deal in how old it is. Clinton's most recent poll was just last October, and little seems to have changed. Several other candidates were measured in May 2006. But Edwards' last reading was in October 2004 (during his run for the Vice-Presidency) and Gingrich's dates back to 1998! So look at change with due caution.
























Finally, the balance of not knowing the candidate versus knowing but not enough to rate them can be instructive. In the earlier CBS News poll, there was a clear differentiation between the better known and the lesser known candidates. The new Fox poll lacks almost all of the lesser known figures, so that pattern is less pronounced here than in the CBS data (here)
Still, among these candidates, it is interesting the Obama now more closely resembles the better known candidates, while only Romney remains in the space occupied by the least known in the CBS poll.

Pres08: National Trial Heats

Updated 11/8/07




















(This is a BIG graphic. Click once or twice for full resolution.)

This post tracks the national Republican vs. Democrat trial heats for the 2008 presidential election. It is updated in place so a link to this page will always come to the most recently updated trial heat data.

Warning note: Recent polling has given most attention to pairings of Giuliani or Thompson against Clinton or Obama. Romney and especially McCain have been less likely to be included in a test. Likewise Edwards has often been omitted from trail heat questions. This means that the current estimate for McCain vs. Edwards, for example, is heavily influenced by the single recent poll that tested that pairing. When using these charts, look to see that the latest estimates are based on several recent polls. If not, then the results will primarily reflect just the single most recent result. That does not mean the trend estimate is wrong, just that it is based on less data than we usually would like to have.

There is a link to this page from the Trial Heat thumbnail in the right-hand column.

The trend line is only estimated and plotted when there are at least 8 data points to fit. If there are fewer, then only the points are plotted. The estimated candidate support in the figure heading is the latest trend estimate if there are 8 or more polls. Otherwise it is the median of the polls that are available.

The "latest poll" can vary across pairs of candidates because not all polls ask about all pairs.

Polling has avoided trial heats among the least known candidates so far. More will be added as data become available.

I'll avoid commentary here, where the point is just the display of the data. For commentary and other posts on the 2008 Presidential race, click on the "Pres08" label below or on the link in the right column of the page under "2008 Trial Heats".

National Support for 2008 Presidential Candidates

Updated 11/15/07




































The estimated trend is printed as part of the graphs. For the top candidates, this is always the local regression trend estimate. In the individual candidate graphs below if there are 10 or more polls the trend estimate is printed. If less than 10, the median of the polls is printed and no trend line is drawn.

This post is your one-stop update on the 2008 Republican and Democratic presidential primary national polling. (STATE primary/caucus polls will also have a space, but not yet. Soon. Real Soon.) The graphs will be updated in place as each new poll is completed. The top four candidates (based on the polls) in each party get a graphs to themselves, as above. ALL candidates in each party appear in larger graphs below. Click on the graphs once or twice to see the full resolution version. These include drop-outs as well as currently active candidates, plus a few non-candidates such as Rice and Gore (at least as of today.)

For all posts on the 2008 presidential contest, click on or search for the "Pres08" label at the bottom of the post.

The link in the right column of the front page will bring you here throughout the primaries and will announce new poll updates.

Pres08: National vs State Primary Polls

Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are doing better in national polling than in the critical early primary and caucus states. Clinton leads all national Democratic polls, while Giuliani leads McCain in 33 of 43 national polls. But neither candidate does as well when we turn to the polling from the early voting states. Conversely, John Edwards does considerably better in all but two state polls than he does nationally.

Clinton's national support is significantly higher than it is in Iowa and New Hampshire. Nevada and South Carolina (with only 3 polls together) are just about equal to her national standing.

Giuliani has seen some convergence in state and national polls, though his current national support is still above support in three of the states, IA, NH and SC.

The sharpest contrast is with Edwards who does considerably better in IA, NH and SC than he does nationally. Nevada is again the state closest to his national standing.

McCain, Obama and Gingrich show the states spread around their national numbers. McCain in particular has seen some apparent decline in NH over the past 12 months, bringing initially favorable NH number down to his national levels. South Carolina with only 4 polls appears to have slipped a bit as well, but remains well above the national. In Iowa, McCain does no better but also not much worse than he does nationally. The trend in NH must, of course, be of concern for his campaign. Likewise, McCain's national support has been essentially flat over the past year.

In Obama's case, there are relatively few polls so trends are not yet clear. There is not a wide gap between state and nation, though the national is a bit above most of the state polls.

Gingrich is still well behind Giuliani and McCain and his state polling if pretty evenly distributed above and below the national trend. Given the limited nature of his campaign so far there have been few events to affect these trends.

As we all know, the early primary states are not a representative sample of the country, so divergence of state from national polls is to be expected. But the political consequences of doing well nationally but less well in these four states can be profound. We'll keep an eye on these trends.

Bush Approval: 9 New Polls, Trend at 34.0%

A flood of new polls have come out since late last week. Eight national samples have been reported with field dates since January 16. The results: 35% (Fox), 36% (AP), 31% (Newsweek), 33% (ABC/WP), 35% (NBC/WSJ), 28% (CBS/NYT), 34% (CNN) and 34% (ARG). In addition, a Pew Research Center poll conducted 1/10-15/07 found approval at 33%.

Those polls together produce a trend estimate of 34.0%, two one-hundredths of a point above the low point of the trend estimator for the Bush presidency. The CBS poll is far enough away from the trend to qualify as an outlier, but the trend estimate is not particularly sensitive to that low value, thanks to the abundance of polling. The simple mean of the last eight polls is 33.25% with the CBS value included, and 34.0% without it. The median is 34% either with or without CBS. That CBS reading is a point lower than the previous all time low for any polls of the Bush administration.

The CBS poll will get the most attention but the trend at 34.0% is both more defensible as the estimate of current approval and carries with it a sufficiently damaging assessment of the President. A lame duck this close to his all time low approval rating estimate is unable to do much to alter his circumstances. Faced with a hostile Congress with a growing resistance (not yet rebellion) among his own party's Senators, the State of the Union address is unlikely to create new opportunities for the President. The very consistent polling showing support for the troop increase in Iraq in the 30%-35% range means that the one striking new proposal for Iraq the President has made has failed to win support with the public. For better or worse, presidential approval may have moved out of the realm of rhetoric and into the hands of events. I doubt any presidential speech can affect public approval. The fate of the President's support now rests in the hands of Iraqis and members of Congress.

(Note: I posted a previous version of this that omitted the Pew poll. Thanks to Ken Lee for pointing out the oversight. Without Pew the trend estimate was 34.1%.)

State of the Union Effects: Mostly Nil

The State of the Union address has come to be a major moment in the political year. Despite the increased prominence of the speech, the effect of State of the Union addresses on presidential approval has generally been small to non-existent. The average change from before to after the SotU since 1946 has been -0.3 percentage points. Of the 50 post-war speeches for which we have good data, 30 changed approval of the president by 2 percentage points or less. So it is unlikely that President Bush's address Tuesday night will do much to alter public perceptions in either direction, despite the hype around the speech.

The figure above plots change in approval in Gallup poll readings of presidential approval from before to after the SotU. Ideally we'd have polls taken just before and again just after the address. In recent years that has been fairly common, but in earlier years polling was far less frequent. I've measured the days between the speech and the pre-poll and the post-poll. The figure plots the effects for polls taken within 30 days of the address, within 45 days and within 60 days. Where no poll was available within 60 days I've excluded the speech. Even so, some of these polls are far enough apart that attributing effects to the speech per se is suspect. But given the low levels of change, it seems safe to bet that the overall impression of low effects of the speech would not change with a tighter window of polls around the speech.

President Clinton is the one post-war president who enjoyed the greatest success with the SotU. Five of his eight addresses were accompanied by at least a bit of a positive bounce, though even in his case most of these are short of statistical significance.

Perhaps the most surprising result is that Ronald Reagan, the "great communicator" who introduced the practice of having special guests in attendance to recognize during the speech,
did not benefit from his addresses. Only two of his eight addresses showed any positive bounce.

President Bush has likewise not benefited from most of his addresses. Only in 2005 did he get a positive upturn in approval. His other addresses have produced little change in either direction.

So we should dial down any expectations that the State of the Union address is a moment to "salvage a presidency" or "set a new course" or "right the ship of state". The record is clear that those expectations are loftier than the speech has been able to attain.

Hillary Clinton, Favorable/Unfavorable, 1993-2007

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Hillary Clinton has served in the Senate for only six years but she has one of the longest polling records in American politics, going back over 13 years to the beginning of her time as First Lady in 1993. No other Presidential contender has this long a track record of public opinion readings. As a result we have an unparalleled record of the ups and downs of public response to Sen. Clinton.

There was considerably more variation in favorable/unfavorable ratings during her time in the West Wing than there has been since Sen. Clinton became an elected official in 2001. The White House years describe the downturn in favorability during first two years, which included the failure of her leadership of the health reform initiative. Sen. Clinton's favorability rebounded during and following the 1996 presidential election. The effect of the Lewinsky scandal was largely favorable to Senator Clinton, if not to President Clinton.

The decision to run for the U.S. Senate in 2000 produced a new downturn in favorable opinion (and upturn in unfavorable views). However, since she took office in 2001, Senator Clinton has enjoyed relatively stable favorable ratings of around 50%, while unfavorable ratings have averaged in the mid-40s. This sharp split is, of course, one of the more widely remarked aspects of Sen. Clinton's public image.

Most recently, there has been a modest upturn in favorable ratings, especially since the fall elections.

The figure above plots and estimates the trend in favorable/unfavorable ratings after removing the poll to poll variation, also known as "house effects". These are effects due to the standard practices of different polling organizations that introduce systematic differences in results. For example, some polls make it easier for respondents to say they "don't know" their feelings towards a political figure, while others produce lower rates of "don't know" response, pushing more survey respondents to pick a positive or negative response. In the plot above, I've used an iterative estimation procedure to remove the "house effects" and norm the results to those of the Gallup organization. This provides better comparability because it adjusts all polls to a common standard. However, it changes the observed poll results to fit the model. Some may wish to see the raw data. They are presented below.

The figure below plots the raw, unadjusted, data. The greater spread in the gray data points is due to the house effects. In particular, you can see the "don't know" response has considerably greater variation in the unadjusted data. The broad outlines of Senator Clinton's favorable and unfavorable ratings are similar to the adjusted ones. The late upturn in approval, however, is largely only visible when house effects have been removed. The raw data suggest less recent movement.
























(Click on graph for full resolution)

The bottom line of these data is that Senator Clinton remains a public figure who has both a large following of supporters and one who suffers from a substantial antipathy. At the moment, the Senator enjoys more supporters than opponents. Whether than margin is enough to win a national contest or now is, of course, what Democrats (and perhaps the rest of the electorate) will have to decide in the coming months.

Clinton's In, holds lead. Giuliani still tops McCain

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Senator Clinton made it more or less official today. So did Senator Brownback on the GOP side. And ABC/Washington Post conveniently supplied a new national poll for both parties. (Newsweek did too, but stuck to trial heats only, at least in today's release.)

On the Democratic side, Clinton continued to hold a substantial lead, as shown above. After some decline throughout 2006, she may have stabilized or turned slightly up in the last month or two. Sen. Obama has so far not continued a strong upward movement in these national polls, though there are fewer readings for him so the trend is more variable, as the green line makes clear. With a few more polls that line will not jump around as much as the estimate becomes more stable. Former Sen. Edwards has seen some small upward movement recently as well though he trails Obama. And former Vice President Gore has fallen off a good bit recently, as he continues to say he isn't running, probably. The strongest trend in the Democratic field is Sen. Kerry's continuous decline over the past two years. (For the rest of the Democratic field, see below.)



















On the Republican side, former Mayor Giuliani continues to lead the field, despite more press reporting that puts Sen. McCain in the front runner spot. McCain's stronger organization and more serious start are no doubt part of the press' view that McCain is the stronger contender. But so far the public hasn't gone along with that. The rest of the field trails considerably, with no Obama-like surge for one of the "rest". At the moment, former House Speaker Gingrich is in third place, with former Massachusetts Gov. Romney in fourth place, with a solid trend but still estimated in single digits. (See below for the rest of the Republican field.)

















(Click once or twice on the graph for the full resolution version.)

The rest of the Democratic field can be found in the graph above. I've stopped including every single person asked about in a survey. (Zogby included journalist Bill Moyers in its latest, for example.) I'm including candidates and former candidates who are at least frequently mentioned as potential candidates of some seriousness. Of course if a candidate becomes more prominent (former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, for example) I'll add them to the plot. I keep some who have dropped out because the comparison of where they were when they quit is instructive. None of those in low single digits has yet made a move, unless you count Obama from 2004.
















(Click once or twice on the graph for the full resolution version.)

Likewise here with the Republicans I've trimmed the field a bit. (Some pollster thought it made sense to include California Gov. Schwarzenegger, for example, who can't be elected without a constitutional amendment.) Without an Obama-like rise, none of the dark-horses here have yet made a significant move in the polling.

By the way, it isn't home state rooting for former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson that gives him a first name here-- some polls have included former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson in their candidate list, and both are sufficiently short of being household names I thought I should distinguish them. If Fred Thompson stays out of the race, I'll strip my former Governor of his first name.

The Dynamics of Reaction to Bush's Surge Speech

(Click on the figure for a full resolution view.)

Shifts in opinion on Iraq immediately following President Bush's speech last week were not as uniformly negative as some reporting implied. However, the response turned more negative as time passed following the speech. The immediate aftermath of the speech found generally small shifts, yet more of these moved towards the administration's positions than against them. In contrast, by the weekend and later polls found most opinion moving against the administration. This difference reflects the role of congressional reaction and media coverage of that reaction in shaping response over time, in contrast to the immediate response to the speech itself.

There are now five polls conducted entirely after President Bush's speech on Iraq last week. (CBS News did a "call back" with previously interviewed respondents the night of the speech. I'm leaving that out because it isn't a fresh sample and not all original respondents could be reached that night.) ABC/Washington Post did a post-speech survey on January 10. CNN/Opinion Research Corporation (CNN/ORC) conducted a poll on 1/11. The Pew Research Center conducted interviews 1/10-15. USAToday/Gallup polled 1/12-14. LATimes/Bloomberg interviewed 1/13-16.

While partially overlapping, these polls are ordered in time and let us look at how reaction to the speech has developed over time. The Pew survey had the longest field period and completely overlaps the USAToday/Gallup poll. Pew has two days of interviews before Gallup began and one day after Gallup. I'm assuming this means the average Pew respondent was interviewed earlier than the average Gallup respondent. Polls often (but not always) complete most of their interviews early in the interviewing period, which would push the average Pew date earlier as well, but I don't know if that was true of this specific Pew poll. If this assumption is false, then my story below is not quite so neat so bear this caveat in mind.

There are a large number of questions that have been asked about Iraq in these polls. Each reflects support or opposition to some aspect of the administration's policies, approval or disapproval of the President's handling of Iraq, and optimism or pessimism about the prospects for success in Iraq. Usually we focus on a single question such as support or opposition for the troop increase. But we can also get a sense of how the wider range of opinion is shifting by looking at a number of questions simultaneously. Here I take the latter approach. The data I use are all questions in any of the five surveys for which there is a "before" and "after" reading of opinion. Most of the "before" readings are from January or December, though a few come from earlier. The specific questions are listed at the bottom of this post.

The figure above shows how opinion shifted from before to after the speech for all these items. The arrows begin at the "before" and point to the "after" poll result. In this figure I don't try to label the specific questions (I do that below.) Here the idea is to look at the overall direction of movement.

The horizontal axis plots negative opinions about the war or the administration, while the vertical axis plots positive views. The closer to the diagonal line a poll is the more people expressed a positive or negative opinion, while the closer to the lower left corner the more people said they didn't have an opinion or adopted a neutral position (such as the increase in troops won't affect the outcome either way.)

Arrows that point toward the upper left corner indicate movement that favors the administration's positions, moves toward a more positive view of the president (or a negative view towards the Democrats) or expresses increased optimism (or reduced pessimism) toward the war or its likely outcome. So arrows pointing "northwest" (or due west) are good for the administration. Arrows pointing the opposite direction, southeast or due south, are the opposite: bad news for the administration. The longer the arrow, the bigger the change. Arrows pointing northeast or southwest are mixed messages with both support and opposition increasing (northeast) or decreasing (southwest). Only a few of these appear in the data.

The arrows are color coded by poll and therefore by time as well. The legend gives the order of polling as well as pollster.

There is a danger here of confounding the effects of time after the speech with "house effects" that reflect persistent differences between polling organizations. I've mitigated that confound here by measuring change within polling organization, from that pollster's "before" to the same pollster's "after" reading. If one organization typically produces higher approval ratings than does another pollster that difference would show up in where the arrows start but the direction and extent of change would be measured from that pollster's baseline, subtracting out the house effect. This isn't foolproof and it is conceivable that house effects also affect change measures, but this approach should mitigate house effects by relying on “apples to apples” comparisons.

Most arrows begin and end in the lower right portion of the figure, reflecting the generally negative balance of opinion on the war. It is this fact that has received the most attention in reports on the post-speech polling. Minorities support the troop increase, approve of Bush's handling of the war, and are optimistic about the outcome of the war. As a result the headlines tended to stress the net negative evaluation while paying less attention to the direction of change following the speech. This leaves the impression that the speech failed to increase support for the administration. If we focus on the arrows, we see a more interesting pattern of change.

Over half of the arrows (20 of 37) point to the northwest or west, indicating increased support for the administration. So the change in opinion was by no means a net negative when viewed across all items and polls. But the shifts are not random. As time goes by, the shifts of opinion become more negative toward the administration's positions. We can see this more clearly by looking at each poll in turn, avoiding the clutter of overlapping arrows above.
























The red arrows from ABC/Washington post reflect the most immediate reaction, prior to the influence of media coverage or the impact of congressional reactions. Four of five items in the ABC/WP poll moved in a positive direction. Trusting Bush more than Democrats (+4), approval of Bush's handling of Iraq (+6), and thinking the war has been worth the cost (+4) all moved modestly in the President's direction in this "instant" reading of reaction. To be sure these changes are not huge, but they demonstrate some positive response to the speech. The item that moved more negatively was the belief that we are winning the war (-5). And belief that Iraq is like Vietnam barely changed. To be sure only 36% said they supported the increase in troops in the ABC/WP poll, while 61% opposed. But here we don't have a prior benchmark to know if this was an improvement or not. Certainly given that prior to the speech only 28% in ABC/WP polling approved of Bush's handling of the war, one might conclude that 36% support for the surge was in fact a better than expected showing


























The CNN/ORC poll taken the next day found 6 of 9 shifts pointing northwest or west. Those saying Bush has a clear plan on the war increased 10 points in the President's favor. Bush's handling of the war (+1), saying US defeat was not possible (+5), trust that the Iraq government could handle the situation (+1), and trust that the US government can handle the Iraq situation (+8) (though note that this is the US government so this could include increased optimism about a Democratic Congress rather than support for the administration.) And while belief that victory would be the outcome did not increase, those thinking defeat would be the outcome declined (-2). One item failed to change at all, support or opposition to the war overall. And two items moved slightly away from the President's positions: believing that victory is possible (-1) and Bush's overall job approval (-1).


























Pew found 6 of 8 items shifting in the President's direction. Saying the US needs more troops (+8), Bush has a clear plan (+3), the US effort is going well (+3), we should keep troops in Iraq until the situation stabilizes (+2), that the Democrats LACK a clear plan for Iraq (+3) and the we should NOT immediately withdraw (+2).

Only on the question if whether the war was a mistake did opinion move away from the administration (-2). Those favoring a timetable for withdrawal moved ambiguously with both positions increasing slightly.

So the initial polling was quite consistent in finding small movements in favor of the administration's positions. Only a few of these shifts were outside the margin of error, but the clear preponderance of movement (16 of 22 items) was towards the President's views.

If you scroll back over the figures, you'll note that all of the polls agree on the low level of support for President Bush's surge proposal. The triangular point in each figure locates this amidst the changes. The support for the surge readings are 36%, 32%, 31%, 38% and 36%. These low levels of support provided the basis for headlines that stressed the negative reaction to the President's speech, but overlooked the direction of change in opinion in these initial polls.
























As reaction accumulated, the direction of opinion shift turned substantially to the southeast. The blue arrows from USAT/Gallup's weekend poll tell quite a different story from the initial polls. Only 3 of 9 USAT/Gallup items point northwest. Six of the nine arrows point to the southeast, opinions shifting against the administration. Gallup found movement in the President's direction for having a clear plan (+4), Bush job on Iraq (+2) and the Democrats LACKING a clear plan (+9). But for six other items opinion shifted away from the administration: those thinking we will win in Iraq (-3), can achieve our goals (-3), should not withdraw (-1), Bush's overall job (-3), and war has been worth the cost (-2). Those thinking the war was a mistake increased by 1 point though those saying it was not a mistake held steady.


























Finally, in the latest poll by the LA Times/Bloomberg only 1 of 6 shifts of opinion favors the president's position, while four move away and one moves ambiguously. The one positive movement is on trusting Bush or the Democrats more on the war. Trust of the Democrats more decreased by 2 points while trust in Bush was unchanged. In contrast the negative movements occurred on items for evaluation of Bush's overall job (-3), war worth the cost (-6), Bush's Iraq job (-2) and believing Iraq is not in a civil war (-5). Belief that we are winning the war moved ambiguously with one point more believing we are winning and one point more saying we are losing (while most people said neither side is winning.)


These changes in response direction are most likely the result of Congressional reaction, including the several Republican Senators who were quite negative towards the troop increase and the related media coverage of the issue. These reactions provided an important element of news reporting that balanced the President's speech with not only predictably negative Democratic reaction but that also stressed the negative reactions of conservative Republicans such as Chuck Hagel and Sam Brownback.

The low support for the troop increase in the polls also played a roll in the developing opinion. By focusing on the low level of support for the surge, news stories about polls emphasized a negative reaction. But they might just as well have focused on items that moved in Bush's direction. These items mostly remained in net-negative territory, so that is also part of the story, but the direction of change should count for something as well in assessing reaction to the speech and the surge proposal.

I do not mean to suggest here that the net opposition to the increase is not part of the story. Far from it. But if our purpose is to assess the impact of the speech, then incremental change is what is most important. Surely no one would imagine that a speech could completely reverse the current views of the war. But if the administration is to improve its standing with the public, it must do so in small, positive, changes. The evidence is that the speech succeeded in accomplishing that modest goal. Where the policy has so far failed is in also mobilizing support from members of Congress. The secondary reaction to the surge policy has overcome the initial movement towards the administration. For my part, the dynamic of opinion shift over the past week is a textbook example of how opinion change depends on both the event itself (the speech) and the subsequent reaction and interpretation.

Bush Approval: Gallup 34%, Trend 34%

Approval of President Bush is at 34% in the latest Gallup/USAToday poll, completed 1/12-14/07. Disapproval stands at 63%. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll completed 1/11/07, just after the President's speech, found 35% approval and 62% disapproval. An AP/Ipsos poll completed just BEFORE the speech placed approval at 32% and disapproval at 65%. (ABC and CBS did post-speech polls. CBS' was a call back to previously interviewed respondents, not a new sample, and ABC's new sample did not include overall approval of Bush's handling of his job.) See my poll comparison plots at Pollster.com here for the trends in each poll.

With these new polls, the approval trend stands at 34.0% (33.98% if you don't believe in rounding.) The trend remains vulnerable to a relatively small number of new polls in January. The trend has bounced from 33.5% to 34.9% to the current 34.0%. A couple more readings would be welcome, but saying approval is 34% +/-1% would be a pretty confident estimate.

The impact of the troop surge speech has appeared modest in the four post-speech polls we've seen so far. Most of these have found a point or two upturn in Iraq specific support, but flat or declines in some other measures. Certainly no large effects (either way) have been consistently found. I'll have more to say about that a bit later.

Iraq Opinion Review

With President Bush set to speak to the nation tonight on a new Iraq strategy I thought is was a good time to review the recent opinion trends related to Iraq.

The graph above compares approval of Bush's overall job with approval of his handling of Iraq. The two have generally trended together and mostly "bounced" together. What is interesting is the change over the fall of 2006 when the Iraq job approval declined sharply while the overall job decline was less and has recently been relatively flat. The sharp decline is based on a decent number of polls, so is not likely to be an artifact of a small number of polls.

I suspect this decline is a combination of the impact of increased sectarian fighting in Iraq along with the fall campaign's critique of Republicans generally and of the President's handling of the war specifically. Whatever the cause, the sharp decline raises questions of how much credibility the White House has left to leverage support for the new strategy we will hear about tonight. While the latest CBS News poll found 61% of Republicans still supporting the President on Iraq, only 21% of Independents did and a stunning 3% of Democrats.

If Republicans in Congress give good support for the President's new plan, I expect to see an increase in approval among the Republican public. I'm not nearly so confident that a substantial segment of Independents will be similarly encouraged by the new direction. Certainly there will be a mix of both positive and negative reaction to the speech, and Independents are already predisposed by their low 21% support to accept negative interpretations of the policy rather than positive ones. Unless the speech is particularly persuasive, or the supportive reaction particularly strong, I don't think it likely that Independents will move up in support by very much. With virtually no Democrats supporting the President's position on the war it is hard to see how support among that population can be expected to improve.

Until recently, approval of Bush's handling of Iraq was just a few points below his overall job approval and the two moved together. Now the sharply increased gap between them suggests that the Iraq opinion is no longer strongly tied to overall views of his performance. Tonight's speech may restore that linkage, though not necessarily to the President's benefit. When approval has shrunk as low as it has for Iraq, I'm not sure you can "borrow capital" from overall approval (itself low at 34.9% based on my trend estimate) to shore up support for Iraq. Instead, I suspect that support must be found in external reaction from credible Republicans and news sources. If that happens, support may improve at least temporarily. If reaction among those sources is sharply divided it is hard to see how support for the President can be improved.

The second aspect of support is to shift the argument away from the President's handling of the war and on to other aspects of opinion. Here too opinion is more negative than positive, but it is much less negative than approval of the President is. The plot below illustrates this. While more citizens now think the was was a mistake and not worth the cost than think otherwise, the gaps here are less stark than for Bush Iraq approval.

Americans remain reluctant to say that the US did the "wrong" thing or made a "mistake" in starting the war. While "wrong" or "mistake" has now climbed into the 50s, making it the majority response, those rejecting this view have continued to hang in the 40s, rather than collapse into the 20s as has Bush approval on Iraq. Those thinking the war has been worth it have declined to the high 30s or low 40s. Again, not support for the war on balance, but less negativity than we see for Bush's handling. My point is not that there is strong support for the war. That clearly is false. But there are almost twice as many people who think the war was justified and worthwhile than there are those who think the administration has done a good job handling the war. If these constituencies can be persuaded that the new policies offer a hope of success in a war that was both justified and worth the cost, support might indeed increase at least to the ceiling of 40-45% that these groups represent. That would certainly be an improvement from the White House's perspective.
























The Gallup poll taken 1/5-7/07 also suggests the opinion niches which may be persuadable on Iraq policy. Despite all the negativity cited above, a surprising 50% think the U.S. is either "certain" (16%) or "likely" (34%) to win the war in Iraq. Forty-six percent think not: 28% say unlikely and 18% say certain not to win. Given the situation in Iraq, this represents a surprising confidence that the outcome remains "winnable." And it offers the President his best chance of gaining support for his policy by playing to these remaining hopes.

On the specific issue of increasing the number of troops ("surge" or "escalation", as you prefer), 54% are clearly on the other side from the President, with 15% saying withdraw immediately and 39% saying withdraw by a year from now. But that leaves 43% on the President's side: 31% say take as long as is needed and 12% saying send more troops. So again the opportunity continued to exist to convince a substantial number of potential supporters to approve of the new plan.

Asked by Gallup if the U.S. can achieve its goals in Iraq "only with more troops", "without more troops" or "cannot achieve its goals regardless of troops", only 47% say the US cannot achieve its goals. Forty-eight percent think we can achieve our goals (23% with more troops, 25% without more.) Again, about an even split in the view that the US can ultimately succeed in Iraq, and the President's mission to convince the 25% that think troops aren't needed to nevertheless think it is a good idea to add troops.

Finally, the increase troops option on its own has only 36% support and 61% opposition. But that is where the speech tonight bears the burden of convincing some of these (only some, not all!) that the increase will bring improvement in the situation. Put together, if the President can muster support from something on the order of 45% of the public in favor of his plan, he will improve his standing (though not necessarily lead him to majority support.) From the White House's perspective, an improvement of this order of magnitude would be a significant move in the right direction.

I've focused here on the potential for increased support because I've seen little talk of this in most polling analysis. By focusing too exclusively on Bush's Iraq job approval, which is shockingly low, we tend to overlook other areas where the public is not as negative or pessimistic.

Among Democrats, these numbers would be far, far less positive. That provides the party (and especially party leaders and presidential hopefuls) a strong incentive to continue a critique of the war and of Bush policy. But the overall balance of opinion is not so overwhelmingly negative as the one indicator of Bush approval suggests. While the public judges administration performance to be terrible, there remain significant reservoirs of support for the goals and even optimism over probable outcomes. Whether those are justified or not, both parties face an electorate that is not yet solidly against the war nor solidly in favor. There is still persuasion to be done by both sides.