Category Archives: Polls

Presidential Approval Since FDR

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Sometimes it is good to see presidential approval over the very long haul– like since the birth of polling! Here are all Gallup presidential approval polls since Franklin Roosevelt, thanks to the Roper Center for the long term data and FiveThirtyEight.com for recent polls.

Gallup doesn’t do nearly as many approval polls now as they did in the past, so not many Biden polls. But the recent decline in approval is notable in comparison with past presidents. Yes, you need to zoom in.

Here are all polls of Biden approval, with my fit to the trend. See your favorate aggregation site for alternative averages. The gradual decline through July sharply accelerated in August. Not that this is news. However the decline in August continued at about the same rate in September, so no sign yet of flattening out.

Generic Congressional Ballot Review

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The congressional generic ballot is one of the few indicators with a long history of non-presidential vote outcomes we have. I’ll look at how good a predictor it is at another time. Here is simply a review of the trends over each election cycle. The chart above shows each cycle since 1999-2000 until the current cycle, as of Oct. 5, 2021.

And for the obsessive, here is a chart of each cycle since 1945-46. It Is unreadable without zooming in, so download it and zoom as you wish.

The .pdf version is best for zooming in. You can download it here.

Updated 2021-10-06 to correct errors in 1981-82 chart.Thanks to @SteveEvets8 for spotting the errors.

Race, education and gender, Biden and Dems

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It is well known that the combination of race, education and gender has become a powerful predictor of partisanship, vote and presidential approval. For Biden approval the contrast is sharp between whites (regardless of gender) without a college degree and those with a degree. But what deserves some attention is the opinion of Biden among non-white, non-college, males.

Non-white males without a degree are notably less approving of Biden than are any other category of non-white respondents. This echos some evidence that Biden underperformed with this group in the 2020 vote as well.

The approval pattern is somewhat more distinctive than the partisanship pattern.

White college graduates are more Republican than Democratic in partisanship, but notably more approving of Biden than are their non-college equivalents.

Non-white, non-college males who are evenly divided on Biden approval are heavily Democratic vs Republican, though a majority consider themselves independent. This contrasts with other non-white groups.

While the partisan differences are less substantial, the status of Biden approval among non-white, non-college males is a potential vulnerability for Biden, who already suffers badly among non-college whites.

Trust and Question Wording

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Here comes a bit about survey question wording. For those just tuning in, NPORS=National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) from Pew, which released their 2021 update today (Sept 24) (thanks, Pew!)

According to my national @MULawPoll released this week 56% say “most people can be trusted” and 44% say “most people can’t be trusted”. But today Pew released their NPORS survey conducted this summer and find just 32% say most can be trusted. What’s going on??

This difference, of course, scared the bejeezus out of me. How can Pew’s National Public Opinion Reference Survey differ so much from mine, conducted at a similar time and on a question we would expect to be a stable attitude?? Question wording, my friends. Question wording.

My question is worded “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or most people can’t be trusted?” That was, in fact, the wording Pew used as recently as March 2020 and July 2020. In those 2 Pew got 58% and 53% most can be trusted, close to my 56%

So did the world go all “untrusty” since 2020? Pew changed the question in 2021. Now they asked “Which statement comes closer to your view even if neither is exactly right: Most people can be trusted or You can’t be too careful in dealing with people”

And the marginals flipped: With this wording 32% most can be trusted, 68% you can’t be too careful. A year ago in Pew’s July, with the previous wording: 58% most can be trusted, 39% most cannot be trusted. So which wording should we trust?

Pew’s original wording produced pretty consistent results (with slight differences in the stem to the question but not to response options): Nov 2018 52-47, March 2020 53-46, July 2020 58-39. So quite a change to 32-68 with the “new” wording.

But (as they say) the “new” wording is actually the one Pew generally used before the 2018-2020 polls cited above. They had generally used the “you can’t be too careful” as the alternative. And it makes a big difference.

Here are Pew studies with “can’t be too careful”: Apr 2017: 42 (trusted)-57 (can’t be too careful); Apr 2017 42-58; Feb 2016 43-56; Aug 2014 52-48(a); Aug 2014 47-51(b); Apr 2012 37-59. ( (a)Web, (b)Phone, same field dates)

This isn’t a “house” issue with Pew. The GSS has asked the “can’t be too careful” version for a while: GSS-NORC 2018 32-63; GSS-NORC 2016 31-64; GSS-NORC 2014 30-65; GSS-NORC 2012 32-64. The stability we’d expect on this item over time and close to Pew’s current 32-68.

So… both wordings appear stable and across survey houses (my 56-44, Pew’s 58-39, 53-46, 52-47) but also GSS and Pew’s flipped 32-63, 31-64, 30-65, 32-64 and 32-68.

Which wording we should use is less clear. The “most can’t be trusted” is clear and direct, “can’t be too careful” touches on suspicion. A much deeper analysis is needed of this issue. But this is a great example of seemingly similar items producing big differences.

I think there is a lot to be said for consistency, so I don’t expect to change my wording. Also this isn’t a complaint about Pew. The variation in wording they used actually allows us to understand the effect of question wording. A big help.

The Pew NPORS is a major service to the survey research world. But question wording matters and we need to take it into account, especially with a “reference survey” that influences all of us. Also the trust item was not included in the NPORS for 2020, so surprised me.

There are other issues to consider where question wording and item construction differs in the NPORS (looking at you, party ID and leaners!) so let’s all take advantage of this great resource. But as someone said: “Trust, but verify.”