Sunday, February 08, 2009

Where is support for the package now?

Pollster.com has been looking at polling on support for the Stimulus package. Newsreaders and conservative pundits have been harping on a drop in support. Though the Gallup poll has remained steady, but that one isn't fitting the media narrative.

Of note:

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Second, notice that both CBS and Gallup changed the dollar amounts, Gallup on their second of three surveys and CBS this week. Perhaps more important: CBS also made a subtle change in their verbiage. The old CBS question references a "775 billion dollar economic stimulus package." The new question calls it an "economic stimulus bill costing more than 800 billion dollars" (emphasis added). They needed to change the amount, but why change the sentence structure? And more important, does adding "costing" make some respondents realize that proposal is not a government giveaway but rather something they might have to pay for someday? Without a split-form experiment, it is hard to know for certain.

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... Thanks to the reader who caught something I missed. Rasmussen also changed the wording of their stimulus question. In their first test in early January, the question identified only "Barack Obama" as the sponsor. Beginning with their 1/27-28 survey, that changed to "Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats" (emphasis added). I have corrected the table above to reflect the changed wording

That change is important: While "congressional Democrats" are earning slightly better ratings than their Republican counterparts, their numbers are nowhere near as positive as Obama's. On the CBS survey, or example, Obama 62% approve of his performance as president, but only 48% rate the "congressional Democrats" favorably. Nancy Pelosi's favorable rating, using the tougher CBS format (that encourages respondents to report when they are unfamiliar), has dropped to just 10% favorable, 30% unfavorable).

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I do not understand why people are having diffculty understanding. The number of unemployed people (11.6 million) and the unemployment rate (7.6 percent) rose in January. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 4.1 million. The Department of Labor reported today that nonfarm payroll employment fell sharply in January (-598,000) and the unemployment rate rose from 7.2 to 7.6 percent. Payroll employment has declined by 3.6 million since the start of the recession in December 2007, .... most of this mess happening only in past three months! And some wonder Obama is pushing so hard for a stimulus package. Is the Herbert Hoover approach, do nothing, all we need, leading us to a twelve year depression ??