Partisan issues

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Republicans and Democrats have very different issue concerns in 2022.

GOP pollster Bill McInturff nails it, and my @MULawPoll data in Wisconsin agrees. Reps care about one set of issues, Dems a different set, with little overlap.

Here is Bill’s full quote. The link includes a link to the longer @RonBrownstein story at CNN. politicalwire.com/2022/08/31/bon… h/t Taegan Goddard @politicalwire for the quote.

If you see Republicans talking about border security/illegal immigration and Dems talking climate change, just look here to see why Compare “Crime”, “Crime in your community” and “Gun violence” for sharp differences by party. Also note less concern by all for crime in your community.

And credit to gganimate for making the gif.

Party ID Trend, midyear update

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The net balance of party identification has shifted in the Republican direction in 2022, by a little in Kaiser and Marist polls, but a lot in NBC and Quinnipiac polls. One might debate the size but the trend is clear. What it means is perhaps not quite as clear.

Kaiser Net Party ID Trend
NBC Net Party ID Trend

The party balance might most obviously shift because people are moving away from the Democratic Party and (likely) into independents, and (likely) from independents and into Republican. In short, real change in the margin.

Democratic approval of Biden has fallen over the year, while Republicans are united in disapproval of Biden (almost unanimously). Inflation is a dominant issue which favors Republicans and damages Democrats. And a Democratic congress has failed to deliver as much as many Democrats had hoped for in early 2021. That is all a recipe for marginal shifts in the party balance, especially at the boundaries between “independent” and either partisan group.

Or the shifts could be because Democrats are “discouraged” by the national political environment (largely for the same reason as above) and are just less anxious to talk to pollsters about politics. In this story the “real” party balance hasn’t changed but Democrats just don’t feel like talking about it. This is cold comfort to Democrats though, since discouraged Democrats not talking to pollsters are also likely Democrats less likely to vote in November, which is also damaging to party prospects.

The recent changes in margin between Democrats and Republican identification are rather large in comparison to shifts we’ve seen earlier in the time series for each pollster. Such trends could reverse before the elections, but time is growing short. And Biden’s job approval has shown no signs of improving, indeed his average continues to slowly decline, now below 40% approval.

Races for Senate and governor may hinge on candidates and the campaigns, so these partisan trends are not the whole story but they add to the national forces that are a drag on Democrats everywhere and a boost to Republicans.

Notes: I look here are “unleaned” party identification, those who say they are “Republicans” or “Democrats”, not including those who say they are independents who lean to either party. This is in part due to limits in the party measures reported by pollsters, with “unleaned” party being the lowest common denominator.

I also use high quality telephone polls that do NOT weight their samples to party ID. This has historically been the “standard” party measure. Most online polls, including Pew, now weight their samples to a party balance estimated from recent telephone polls, which makes tracking trends with samples weighted to party a complicated issue.

Here are the trends for Kaiser, Marist, NBC and Quinnipiac, first for each party and then for the net margin between the parties. Data include the latest polls as of July 5, 2022.

Kaiser Party ID Trend
Marist Party ID Trend
NBC Hart/Public Opinion Strategies Party ID Trend
Quinnipiac Party ID Trend
Kaiser Net Party ID Trend
Marist Net Party ID Trend
NBC Net Party ID Trend
Quinnipiac Net Party ID Trend

Abortion and motivation to vote

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Abortion policy, issue concern and enthusiasm to vote

Are abortion policy preferences linked to motivation to vote and to concern about the issue of abortion, and what role does partisanship play? I assess this using data from the Marquette Law School Poll of 803 Wisconsin registered voters, conducted June 14-20, 2022, a week before the US Supreme Court struck down the Roe v Wade decision on June 24, but well after the draft opinion in this case became public in May.

There has been a consistent majority of Wisconsin registered voters who favor legal abortions in all or most cases, and a minority who say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Surveys over the past decade have shown very little change in opinion, as shown in Table 1.

Poll datesLegal in all casesLegal in most casesIllegal in most casesIllegal in all cases
9/13-16/1226342313
9/27-30/1225352312
10/11-14/1225342512
10/25-28/1228322312
10/21-24/1326362510
10/23-26/1424342415
7/11-15/1827361811
9/12-16/182636219
10/24-28/1826292414
2/19-23/2018372215
10/26-31/2123382311
6/14-20/2227312411
Table 1: Trend in abortion policy preference, 2012-2022

There is little difference in enthusiasm to vote except among those who think abortion should be illegal in most cases. Those in the two pro-abortion categories, and those with the most anti-abortion preference are all equally motivated to vote. This gives no support for the idea that the abortion issue would be uniquely motivating to pro-abortion voters. Of course this could change, but the draft opinion does not appear to have motivated supporters of abortion to greater political engagement. Rather those who say abortion should be illegal in most cases are the more enthusiastic to vote in these data.

Abortion policy preferenceVery enthusiasticLess enthusiasticDK/Ref
Legal in all cases56422
Legal in most cases56421
Illegal in most cases68320
Illegal in all cases57430
Table 2: Enthusiasm to vote by abortion policy preference

Abortion policy preference and concern about the issue

Those who think abortion should always be legal or always be illegal are the most concerned about abortion policy, while those in the middle categories of legal in most cases or illegal in most cases are substantially less concerned.

Those with the strongest anti-abortion preference express more concern for abortion policy than do the strongest pro-abortion advocates by a small margin.

Abortion policy preferenceVery concernedLess concernedDK/Ref
Legal in all cases66340
Legal in most cases53461
Illegal in most cases51427
Illegal in all cases73270
Table 3: Concern about the issue of abortion by abortion policy preference

Age and abortion preference and concern

There is virtually no relationship between age and abortion preference. Only those 70 years old or older are a bit less supportive of abortion than the other age groups.

AgeLegal in all or mostIllegal in all or mostDon’t know
18-2962381
30-3960306
40-4960345
50-5960355
60-6957355
70+51407
Table 4: Abortion policy preference by age

Concern over the abortion issue is also not associated with age. Concern fluctuates across age groups but is not consistently higher among the young than it is among their elders. These results suggest it is unlikely that the abortion issue will be uniquely motivating for younger voters in the fall elections.

AgeVery concernedLess concernedDK/Ref
18-2962380
30-3946540
40-4955433
50-5966331
60-6955414
70+64324
Table 5: Concern about abortion policy by age

Partisanship and concern about abortion policy

Democrats say they are more concerned about the abortion issue, followed by Republicans while independents express less concern about the issue.

Party IDVery concernedLess concernedDK/Ref
Republican57412
Independent49492
Democrat73261
Table 6: Abortion policy concern by party identification

While Democrats express more concern about abortion, they are less likely than Republicans to say they are very enthusiastic about voting in November.

Party IDVery enthusiasticLess enthusiasticDK/Ref
Republican74260
Independent49491
Democrat60391
Table 7: Enthusiasm to vote by party identification

Enthusiasm to vote by party and abortion policy preference

Enthusiasm to vote is highest among Republicans, and equally so for pro- and anti-abortion policy preferences. Among independents, those opposed to abortion are more enthusiastic than those supporting abortion. Among Democrats who are pro-abortion, enthusiasm is less than among Republicans. There are very few Democrats who are anti-abortion, but among this group enthusiasm is low, about the same as for pro-abortion independents.

Party IDAbortion policyVery enthusiasticLess enthusiastic
RepublicanLegal all or most cases7327
RepublicanIllegal all or most cases7327
IndependentLegal all or most cases4553
IndependentIllegal all or most cases5743
DemocratLegal all or most cases6138
DemocratIllegal all or most cases4852
Table 8: Enthusiasm to vote by abortion policy preference and party identification

Conclusion

A week before the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, Wisconsin Republicans were more motivated to vote than Democrats, and pro-abortion policy preference was not associated with greater enthusiasm to vote. Enthusiasm was higher among those saying abortion should be illegal in most cases while quite similar among those saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and for those saying it should be illegal in all cases.

The Court’s now official decision overturning Roe, and the subsequent political campaigns on the issue, may shift motivation and participation, but the leak of the draft of that opinion in May did not produce a measurable mobilization among those favoring abortion rights, contrary to some speculation.

State gun laws and public opinion

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Abstract

Public opinion substantially favors allowing concealed carry of handguns with a permit or license required. This is true of both a constitutional right under the Second Amendment and as provided by state laws. In contrast, there is substantial majority opposition to laws allowing concealed carry without a licensing requirement, or “permitless” carry.

Nationwide, 66% of those with an opinion favor a Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment includes a right to possess a gun outside the home. For state laws, 62% favor laws that allow concealed carry of handguns with a license and 38% are opposed.

In contrast, permitless concealed carry without a license requirement is supported nationwide by 19% and opposed by 81%.

In the 25 states with permitlesss concealed carry laws, a minority of 28% of adults favor such laws, while 72% are opposed to them, based on a May 2022 Marquette Law School national survey.

State surveys in Texas and Tennessee, states with unlicensed concealed carry laws, found 34% and 39% favored these laws, respectively, with 59% opposed in both states.

State gun laws

In the following analysis, state gun laws are grouped into four categories.

  • Twenty-five states have adopted laws allowing “permitless” concealed carry, requiring no license or permit to have a concealed weapon. (This includes Alabama, Indiana and Ohio that have adopted such a law that will go into effect by Jan. 1, 2023.)
  • Ten states have “shall issue” laws that give no discretion over issuing a license or permit to an applicant meeting the criteria specified by law.
  • Seven states have “shall issue” laws that allow some discretion over issuing a license or permit if the applicant is judged to raise some public safety concerns.
  • Eight states and the District of Columbia have “may issue” laws that give authorities greater lattitude in determining when to issue a license or permit.

Classifications of states were based on these websites which were checked for consistency:

Wikipedia

Giffords.org

concealedguns.procon.org

Public opinion on concealed carry laws

The Marquette Law School Poll surveyed 1,004 adults nationwide May 9-19, 2022. The margin of error is +/-3.9 percentage points. The survey focused on the Supreme Court and included three items on opnion about the Second Amendment and concealed carry laws. The survey began before the mass shooting that killed 10 people in Buffalo, NY, and was completed before the mass shooting that killed 21 in a Uvalde, TX elementary school.

Full results of the Marquette Law School poll are available here.

Second Amendment

The Supreme Court is set to decide New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which addresses whether the Second Amendment protects the right to possess a gun outside the home.

The survey asked

Do you favor or oppose the following possible future Supreme Court decisions, or haven’t you heard enough about this to have an opinion?: Rule that the 2nd Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” protects the right to carry a gun outside the home.

Among those with an opinion, 66% favor such a ruling and 34% are opposed.

Opinion on this extension of Second Amendment interpretation to include guns outside the home is more supportive in states with less restrictive gun laws, with large majorities favoring expanded rights to possess a gun, and less supportive in the most restrictive states, where opinion is evenly divided. These results are shown in Table 1.

State gun lawsFavorOppose
Permitless7723
Shall issue7030
Shall issue w limits6436
May issue4852
Table 1: Favor or oppose Supreme Court ruling that the 2nd Amendment right to ‘keep and bear arms’ protects the right to carry a gun outside the home, by state gun laws,among those with an opinion, May 2022

Concealed carry with a license

The Marquette Law School poll also asked about laws concerning concealed carry. Respondents were asked about licensed concealed carry laws:

Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to obtain a license to carry concealed handguns?

These laws were favored by 62% and opposed by 38% nationwide.

Opinion by state gun laws finds over 60% majorities in favor of such laws in most states, and with a narrow majority in favor in the states with the most restrictive laws concerning concealed carry, as shown in Table 2.

State gun lawsFavorOppose
Permitless6535
Shall issue6634
Shall issue w limits6436
May issue5347
Table 2: Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to obtain a license to carry concealed handguns, by state gun laws, May 2022

Concealed carry without a license (“Permitless”)

Half of the states now allow concealed carry without requiring a license or a permit. Respondents were asked

Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to carry concealed handguns without needing to obtain a license?

Opinion on this law is much more opposed than for licensed concealed carry. Nineteen percent favor unlicensed carry laws, while 81% are opposed to such laws.

Table 3 shows opinion on these laws by state gun laws. It is striking that even in the states that allow permitless concealed carry, 72% of adults are opposed to such a law. Opposition to these laws inceases in states with more restrictive gun laws.

State gun lawsFavorOppose
Permitless2872
Shall issue1981
Shall issue w limits1684
May issue1090
Table 3: Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to carry concealed handguns without needing to obtain a license?, by state gun laws, May 2022

Comparison with other national and state polls

National polls

In the Pew American Trends Panel wave 87, April 5-11, 2021 respondents were asked

Please indicate whether you would favor or oppose the following proposals about gun policy: Allowing people to carry concealed guns without a permit

In the Pew survey, permitless carry was favored by 20% and opposed by 79%, with 1% refusing to answer.

The May 2022 Marquette Law School national survey question asks

Do you favor or oppose laws that allow most people to carry concealed handguns without needing to obtain a license?

In the MU Law Poll permitless carry was favored by 19% and opposed by 81%.

Pew does not release the state code as part of the public dataset, so it is not possible to merge the Pew data with state laws.

State polls

This is not a comprehensive collection of state polls on unlicensed concealed carry but is illustrative of state opinion in one “shall issue” state and two states with permitless concealed carry laws.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a “shall issue” state that does require a license for concealed carry. The Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin registered voters has asked about both licensed and unlicensed concealed carry. The results for licensed concealed carry are shown in Table 4 and for unlicensed carry in Table 5.

Poll datesFavorOpposeDon’t knowRefused
1/21-24/16633151
1/8-12/20702550
10/26-31/21622981
4/19-24/22692650
Table 4: Do you favor or oppose Wisconsin’s current law allowing residents to obtain a license to carry concealed handguns?, Wisconsin registered voters

Poll datesFavorOpposeDon’t knowRefused
10/26-31/21207630
4/19-24/22168220
Table 5: Do you favor or oppose a proposed law that would allow residents to carry concealed handguns without needing to obtain a license?, Wisconsin registered voters

Texas

Texas allows concealed carrry without requiring a license.

A Univerity of Texas/Texas Tribune poll conducted in April 2021 asked

Should adults be allowed to carry handguns in public without licenses or permits?

This was supported by 34% and opposed by 59% with 6% saying the don’t know.

Link: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/03/texas-voters-legislature-poll/

Tennessee

Tennessee allows concealed carrry without requiring a license.

A Vanderbilt University Tennessee poll in May 2021 asked

Do you approve or disapprove of a law that would make it legal for people age 21 and older to carry a handgun without a permit in Tennessee?

Thirty-nine percent approved of this law, while 59% disapproved, with 1 percent saying don’t know.

Link: Q22 https://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/Spring_2021_topline_final.pdf

Confidence & Doubt in 2020 vs 2022 elections

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Confidence or doubt in the accuracy of the 2020 election has persisted as an issue since that vote. While substantial majorities of registered voters in Wisconsin are confident the election results were accurate, among Republicans the opposite is true– a majority of Republicans doubt the accuracy of the 2020 election. There has been little change in views of that election over the past nineteen months.

In April, Wisconsin held elections for a variety of state and local offices, including judges, mayors, school boards and other nonpartisan positions. These elections were not followed by widespread claims of fraud or manipulation by either party or by the losers of those elections.

How do Wisconsin registered voters perceive the accuracy of the April 2022 elections compared to the November 2020 election? If “faith in elections” has been seriously damaged by claims that 2020 was a fraud, we should see similar doubts of the 2022 election. If doubt in the 2020 election is primarily a sign of support for former President Donald Trump and his allies, then the reality is not doubt in elections generally but specifically only in the election Trump lost. The April 2022 Wisconsin vote gives us a chance to look at the evidence.

The Marquette Law School poll conducted April 19-24, 2022 followed the April 5 elections in the state. The sample size was 805 registered voters with a margin of error of +/-4.1 percentage points. Full results are available here. Respondents were asked parallel questions about this and the 2020 election:

On April 5, Wisconsin held elections for school boards, judges, local and county positions and other offices. How confident are you that, here in Wisconsin, these votes were accurately cast and counted in the April election?

Concerning the 2020 election they were asked

How confident are you that, here in Wisconsin, the votes for president were accurately cast and counted in the 2020 election?

Response options to both are “very confident”, “somewhat confident”, “not too confident” and “not at all confident.” In the tables below very and somewhat confident are combined as “confident” responses and “not too” or “not at all” confident are combined as “not confident.”

Table 1 shows the results for the April 2022 and November 2020 elections. Confidence in the April 2022 election is 84% compared to 64% confident in the 2020 vote. Only 13% doubt the April results while almost three times as many, 35%, say they doubt the November 2020 election results.

Response April 2022 November 2020 
Confident 84 64 
Not confident 13 35 
DK/Ref 3 1 
Table 1: Confidence in the accuracy of the April 2022 and November 2020 elections, Wisconsin registered voters, Marquette Law School poll, April 19-24, 2022

Views of the 2020 election differ dramatically by party, while partisan differences in confidence in the April 2022 elections is much more muted. Large majorities of each partisan group are confident in the April election results, including about three-quarters of Republicans and over 80% of independents. While 22% of Republicans still profess doubt in the April election that contrasts sharply with the 65% of Republicans who say they doubt the 2020 results.

Among independents, confidence is substantially higher in the April election, 82%, than in the 2020 outcome, 65%, though substantial majorities of independents are confident in both elections.

Democrats are nearly unanimous in their confidence in both elections.

Table 2 shows confidence by party for the April 2022 and November 2020 elections.

Table 2: Confidence in the April 2022 and November 2020 elections by party identification, , Wisconsin registered voters, Marquette Law School poll, April 19-24, 2022

Party ID Confident Not confident DK/Ref 
Republican 74 22 4 
Independent 82 14 3 
Democrat 97 3 0 
(a) April 2022 confidence

Party ID Confident Not confident DK/Ref 
Republican 33 65 2 
Independent 65 34 2 
Democrat 96 4 0 
(b) November 2020 confidence

Among those who are not confident in the 2020 vote, almost two-thirds, 63%, are confident in the 2022 outcome, with 33% who are not confident in the 2022 result. Virtually everyone confident in 2020 is also confident in 2022. Table 3 shows confidence in 2022 by confidence in 2020.

Confidence in 2020 Confident Not confident DK/Ref 
Confident 96 2 2 
Not confident 63 33 4 
Table 3: Confidence in the April 2022 by confidence in November 2020 elections, Wisconsin registered voters, Marquette Law School poll, April 19-24, 2022

We can also look at confidence in both elections as a percentage of all registered voters, shown in Table 4. The entries here are the “cell percentages”, the size of each cell as a percent of all respondents.

Confidence in 2020 Confident Not confident DK/Ref 
Confident 61 2 1 
Not confident 22 11 1 
Table 4: Percentage of all registered voters confident or not confident in both 2020 and 2022 elections, Wisconsin registered voters, Marquette Law School poll, April 19-24, 2022

Of all registered voters, 11% lack confidence in both elections, while 61% are confident in both. Twenty-two percent are not confident in 2020 but are confident in 2022. This is the crucial segment of the population who doubt Trump’s loss, but are still confident in an election he had no role in and which is not disputed by either party. Just 2% are confident in 2020 but not in 2022.

Conclusion

Supporters of Donald Trump have blamed his loss in 2020 on “election fraud” of some sort. But when considering a different election, one not disputed by either party, they are quite confident in the outcome. While there is some residual increase in doubt of 2022 among those who doubt the 2020 election, it is far short of a widespread “lack of faith in elections” generally.

While the April non-partisan elections in Wisconsin are revealing, the November partisan contests will provide another test of the inclination of parties to blame their losses on “fraud.”

Individual change in party identification, 2016-2020

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Recently I tweeted about shifts in aggregate party ID, following Gallup’s release of shifts in their polls. I find 4 other pollsters showing the D-R margin tightening, though not as much as Gallup. Blog version: pollsandvotes.com/?p=217

But what about individual change?

For tracking individual change we need panel data. Thanks to Democracy Fund and Voter Study Group we have a public panel from 2011 through 2020.

I prefer fresh cross sections for tracking aggregate shifts, but panels are THE thing for individual change.

See (or rather hear) the @FiveThirtyEight podcast of Jan 31 for a discussion that includes issues about party leaners that we’ll see in about one tweet here. How much more movable are leaners? Here strength of partisanship matters.

VSG uses the “Michigan” party id item: “Generally speaking do you think of yourself as…” followed by “strong or not so strong” or by “lean to Dem or Rep” to make a 7 point scale.

Below is the 2016-2020 panel turnover. Rows 2016, columns 2020.

Strong partisans are different from any of the 5 middle groups. Strong partisans are 90% likely to still be in same category after 4 years. The middle 5 groups are about 64% likely to be same category.

If you think party is forever, you are thinking about strong partisans.

Weak partisans (“not very strong”) either stay there (62% or 66%) or are more likely to shift into strong (19% or 20%) though 15-20% scatters toward the other party. These are pretty partisan but 1/5 weaken or shift direction. Similar for both D & R.

Leaners D (61%) & R (66%) stay leaners but some (D 12%, R 14%) jump to strong for the party. About as many (D 14%, R 13%) shift to pure independent. Add weak and about 20% become stronger partisans, 12-14 pure independent and 5%D and 2%R shift to other party

And pure independents also remain 62% unchanged. Those who shifted in this 2016-20 period were a bit more likely to shift toward R, though shifting into lean was most common (D10%, R16%)

This seems consistent w Trump attracting previously less involved voters, esp pure Inds.

Party is sticky & especially so for strong partisans. Leaners are more apt to move toward their party but a few move away. Inds also stick as much as weak & leaners, but were drawn to GOP a little more in 2016-20

There was a lot of symmetry in the movements but a slight GOP edge.

Trump, DeSantis, Pence and the GOP

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My new @MULawPoll national release is out. Link at end of this post. Here I want to highlight what I think are the most informative bits. Others have tweeted the toplines for DeSantis v Biden and Trump v Biden but the goal isn’t 2024 but the GOP today.

Trump remains very popular w Republicans, 74% fav, 25% unfav. That is formidable support. DeSantis, not nearly so well known is 52%-11% w Reps but 38% haven’t heard enough. Pence at 59-31 is net positive but only 10% lack an opinion. DeSantis at 5-1 fav, Trump 3-1, Pence 2-1.

Republican support for a Trump run in 2024 is 63%, w 37% not wanting him to run. So 74% are fav to Trump, and a smaller 63% want him to run. Still a solid majority but some hesitancy about a 2024 rerun even among those favorable to him.

Trump has defined doubts about the accuracy of the 2020 vote for Republicans, and 73% say they are not confident in the election (and 71% of those who lean Rep). That issue defines Trump in the party, and the 1 in 4 Reps who disagree are quite unfavorable to Trump.

Favorability to Trump w Reps + Rep leaners is 29% among those confident in the vote, and 88% among the not confident. For Pence, there is no relationship at all between confidence & favs. DeSantis fav is more tied to confidence, but lots of “confidents” are DK for him.

Clearly Trump retains a very strong base of support w Republican voters, who also overwhelmingly adopt his claims about the 2020 election and are very favorable toward him. But support for a rematch with Biden is lower than his fav rating.

Let’s turn back to the head to heads v Biden, but look at the party crosstab. Trump gets 77% of Rep votes, 73% of leaners. DeSantis gets 81% of Reps and 75% of leaners. Trump might well win a primary battle, but GOP voters would support DeSantis at least as much as Trump v Biden.

Takeaway: Trump remains the dominate figure in the GOP, but at least one alternative, DeSantis, performs as well v Biden, gains as much support w GOP and has a better fav-to-unfav ratio in GOP as Trump (But lots of DK) It is a long time to 2024, but how GOP divides sets the stage.

Links to full survey release from @mulawpoll national survey of adults, Jan 10-21, 2022.

Full release: https://law.marquette.edu/poll/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/06_SCNationalIssuesPressRelease.pdf

Toplines, Crosstabs etc: https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2022/01/27/detailed-results-of-the-marquette-law-school-supreme-court-poll-january-10-21-2022/

Party ID Trends, Jan. 2022

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So I, as many of you, woke up Monday to Gallup’s latest party ID numbers with a sharp move towards GOP. The full article is here and I strongly recommend reading it all. It is more nuanced than Twitter headlines might sound.

Let’s look at 4 other high frequency live phone polls from Marist, Quinnipiac, Kaiser, and NBC/Wall Street Journal since 2014.

First Ds and Rs w/o leaners, same scales.

Now the Dem minus Rep margin since 2014, again without leaners.

Finally, the percent who are neither Dems nor Reps. This is 100-Rep-Dem, so it includes Inds, other, dk, refused. Polls aren’t consistent in reporting these, so just the Not D and Not R seems the most consistent practice here.

As with Gallup, the Dem minus Rep margin has tightened in all 3 sets of polls here. Gallup has Ds & Rs both at 28% unleaned in both 3rd & 4th quarter, and Ds had 30-25 and 31-26 in 1st 2 qtrs. Their leaned party has Rs ahead in 4th qtr.

Leaned party is not readily available for some polling organizations, so I’ve used the unleaned which are comparable across all. Shifts among leaners are not uncommon but can clearly tilt the balance. It would be nice if all reported both unleaned and leaned every time.

The big headline is right: The balance of Ds vs Rs has shifted over 2021 to a smaller D advantage. We see this in all 4 sets of surveys.

Do note that inds+other rise and fall with the election cycle, so both parties tend to decline between elections as the non-partisans rise.

But the parties aren’t losing supporters at the same rate. In 2021 it was the Dems who lost support a bit faster than the Reps.

Bottom line is the 4 polls I’ve collected for 2014-2022, QPoll, Marist, KFF and NBC all agree the Dem-Rep margin has tightened but all still have at least a small D advantage. Trending down, so that could change but it hasn’t yet, though for Gallup it has crossed over.

Some technical details

There are two different wordings that are most often used for measuring party identification. The “Michigan” wording is from the UM Survey Research Center work used in The American Voter, a cornerstone of political science:

Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, or what?

In contrast the long-standing wording in Gallup polls is

In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?

(Modern surveys randomize the order of parties in the questions.)

Both items are often followed by a strength question (especially for Michigan wordings for partisans) and a lean question for independents (both styles do this most of the time).

Quinnipiac and NBC/WSJ use the Michigan wording and Kaiser uses the Gallup wording. I’ve not been able to find the wording used by Marist as they don’t publish the full survey instrument including demographics on their website.

In the 1980s and 1990s there was a debate in political science about whether party identification moved in response to party performance or issue positions or other “short term forces”. These debates, among other things, considered the different dynamic properties of measures from the two question wordings.

This point was raised in my Twitter thread by https://twitter.com/bcburden and https://twitter.com/drjjdyck provided a pointer to one important article that compared the dynamics of the two measures:

Abramson and Ostrom 1991 argued that the Gallup wording produced more short-term variation and should be used with extreme caution. Seems like this still holds. https://t.co/gSpsqqH2wQ— Joshua J. Dyck (@drjjdyck) January 18, 2022

I would say that research that is crucially dependent on the dynamic properties of the different measures should consider Abramson and Ostrom’s warning, though I might dissent from “extreme caution” and say “with full awareness of possible differences.” Their work was part of a debate over the responsiveness of partisanship and which measure was “really” capturing it. I’d say we aren’t too wrapped up in that issue these days. As the charts above show, both measures are showing similar trends, and for my purposes that seems the fundamental point.

Given the rise in partisan polarization it might be time to update the comparative analysis of these two wordings, but that isn’t my task today.

PollsAndVotes Public Data Resources

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Updated 2022-09-05

These are links to public data resources for polls and votes, plus census, GIS and software.

I put these here to help those new to polling and political analysis find professional quality data that they can download freely and analyze. For those in high school or college these can be the basis for learning and for building a portfolio of work for Twitter (the source of all knowledge) and for class projects and ultimately for job applications. The data here are also used professionally, but I assume the professionals and graduate students already know all these, though if they are helpful I’m pleased by that.

This is far from comprehensive. If you have suggested additions, or corrections, please ping me @PollsAndVotes

Software

Statistical: R is free, has a huge user community and is complex
Home: https://cran.r-project.org

RStudio provides a free IDE for R that is widely used and a lot of packages and support for R, including RMarkdown for publishing

Home: https://www.rstudio.com
IDE Download: https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/
See the Resources menu on homepage for much more including books and packages

GIS: For Mapmaking

I find R has most of the mapmaking tools I need in various packages. Among many resources see
https://geocompr.robinlovelace.net/adv-map.html
https://r-spatial.org/r/2018/10/25/ggplot2-sf.html

For great integration with Census data see
https://walker-data.com

For a pretty complete understanding of using and mapping census data see this excellent book by Kyle Walker that includes use of his tools for accessing the data as well as mapping it.

https://walker-data.com/census-r/index.html

But if you really need a full blown GIS system

QGIS Extremely capable, not to be learned in a weekend

https://www.qgis.org/en/site/

Tableau Public
A variety of analysis and display options

Home: https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/

SDA at Berkeley
Online analysis of many datasets

Home: https://sda.berkeley.edu

Polls:

American National Election Studies (ANES)
National election surveys since 1948

Home: https://electionstudies.org
Data: https://electionstudies.org/data-center/

CES (Previously CCES)
Very large political surveys since 2005

Home & Data: https://cces.gov.harvard.edu

Voter Study Group:
Includes the VOTER survey and the Nationscape survey

Home: https://www.voterstudygroup.org
Data: https://www.voterstudygroup.org/data

Pew
Many, many surveys. Recent ones delayed several months.

Home: https://www.pewresearch.org
Data: https://www.pewresearch.org/tools-and-resources/

General Social Survey (GSS)
Huge variety of social topics since 1972

Home: https://gss.norc.org
Data: https://gss.norc.org/Get-The-Data

NORC
One of the oldest polling organizations, currently doing AP polls
Allows download of raw survey data after a delay of about 6 months

Home: https://apnorc.org
Data: https://apnorc.org/download-data/

AP VoteCast is a huge survey pre-election and election day, alternative to exit polls
Data: https://apnorc.org/download-data/politics/?search=votecast&order-by=chronological

BYU Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy

Polls on an interesting variety of social and political topics
https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/csed

Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Mostly surveys of US opinion on global affairs, but some domestic issues as well

Home: https://www.thechicagocouncil.org
Data: https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/research/lester-crown-center-us-foreign-policy/chicago-council-survey

PRRI: Public Religion Research Institute
Survey data released after 1 year

Home: https://www.prri.org
Data: https://www.prri.org/data-vault/

The ARDA: Association of Religion Data Archives
Includes survey data along with membership and other aggregate Data

Home: https://www.thearda.com
Data: https://www.thearda.com/Archive/browse.asp

AEI Survey Center on American Life
Data available after 6 months

Home: https://www.americansurveycenter.org
Data: https://www.americansurveycenter.org/data/download-data/

Votes

United States Elections Project
Michael McDonald research, lots on turnout and voting eligible population

Home: http://www.electproject.org

Harvard Dataverse
This can be a fantastic resource but it is huge and complex. Various projects archive their data here in a named “dataverse”. You can search for keywords to find things.

Here are examples of projects that have dataverses

MIT Data + Science Lab
Election returns at various levels and for several offices

Home: https://electionlab.mit.edu
Data: https://electionlab.mit.edu/data
Data: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/medsl

Voting and Election Science Team
Precinct returns for all states, 2012-2020

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/electionscience
2020 National Precinct Level Vote Returns:
https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/K7760H

OpenElections
A project to collect, clean and distribute official results since 2000, down to precinct
This is a project you can help on, from simple to complex. A great way to give back & to learn.

Home: http://openelections.net
Status page: http://openelections.net/news/
GitHub: https://github.com/openelections

ROAD: The Record of American Democracy
National precinct-level vote returns for the 1980s

Home: https://road.hmdc.harvard.edu
Data: https://road.hmdc.harvard.edu/data

State Legislative Election returns
Data and other files collected by Carl Klarner

Dataverse search: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/cklarner?

Data: State legislative returns 1967-2016
https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/DRSACA

Census Data

IPUMS at University of Minnesota

This is the most wonderful, extremely complex, source of current and historical Census data, for all geographies down to the block level. Also offers current and historical GIS shape files. A significant learning curve but well worth it.

Home: https://www.ipums.org

IPUMS: NHGIS provides census tabular data and GIS boundary files from 1790. This is what most people think of as “Census data”
https://www.nhgis.org

IPUMS: CPS provides the individual level Current Population Surveys (monthly) which is the basis of unemployment statistics, annual demographic estimates, and special supplements including the Voter Supplement for registration and turnout every 2 years
https://cps.ipums.org/cps/

IPUMS USA The individual level micro-data from Census and American Community Surveys. Massive. Not for the faint of heart.
https://usa.ipums.org/usa/

Comparative Data Resources
(Not my specialty but this will get you started.)

Afrobarometer
Public opinion across Africa

Home: https://afrobarometer.org
Data: https://afrobarometer.org/dataBritish Election Study

British Election Study

Many elections with both cross-section and panel designs

https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/data/

CLEA: Constituency-Level Elections Archive
Election returns from around the world

Home: https://electiondataarchive.org
Data: https://electiondataarchive.org/data-and-documentation/
GeoReferenced Districts: https://electiondataarchive.org/data-and-documentation/georeferenced-electoral-districts-datasets/

Eurobarometer
Long-running and frequent surveys of the EU

Home: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/screen/home
Data: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/browse/all

LAPOP: AmericasBarometer
34 nations including all of North, Central, and South America

Home: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/
Data: https://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/data-access.php

World Values survey
What the whole world thinks, many countries with same survey items

Home: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp
Data: https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp

Issue Polling… some evidence

Posted on by

A question from @Rufus_GB about the validity of issue polling is linked below.

Here is more of an answer than may have been wished for, largely via links to more thorough analysis than Tweets provide.

I question the value of issue polling, in general, because the results can vary so wildly based on the wording of the question. On Roe, it’s that issue plus the fact that I don’t believe many (most?) Americans understand what Roe actually does/doesn’t do. Thoughts?— Rufus (@Rufus_GB) December 7, 2021

On abortion, wording matters but don’t confound wording with substantively different aspects of the issue. If we ask about “for any reason” or about “serious defect” that is not just wording but different circumstances. Decades of work show the circumstances matter a lot.

See this review of abortion polling since 1972 by @pbump in @washingtonpost

The GSS has asked same questions since then, with 7 different circumstances. There are clear consistent differences. That is much more revealing than just “wording”. From @pbump article:

In my @MULawPoll Supreme Court surveys in Sept. & Nov. 71% of those with an opinion oppose striking down Roe, 29% favor striking it down. But 54% would uphold the 15 week ban in Dobbs, 46% oppose, again of those w an opinion.

Those are substantive differences and make sense.

Here is my analysis of that, including a look at who doesn’t have opinions on the abortion questions. Not all do, and that is also important for understanding issue polls.

The fact that people respond to issue polls differently when the questions raise different aspects of an issue seems an obvious strength of issue polling– circumstances matter, and respondents are sensitive to those circumstances.

If people responded the same way regardless of the circumstances presented in the question, we’d suspect they weren’t paying attention!

There has been a number of recent articles claiming that issue polls are “folly” or that they have seriously missed on state referenda. (And they have missed on some referenda, but the big misses are highlighted and better performance is ignored.)

The Sweep: The Folly of Issue Polling

There are important criticisms: public awareness of issues & information about the issues may be limited. Folks will give an answer but it may not mean much to them. Politicians don’t just “do what the majority wants” so policy doesn’t follow the polls very closely or quickly.

Some might say policy doesn’t mirror opinion polls, and blame polls. I’d think the elected officials might share the blame. They do respond to public opinion sometimes, but they are also responsive to interest groups and donors issue preferences. If they don’t adopt policy in line with public majorities, I’d look at those other influences for part of the story,

Issue polls often don’t have an objective “right answer.” That is what elections do for horse race polls: we know the final answer. But there isn’t a “true” measure of presidential approval or support for an issue. So how do we know?

Referenda provide a chance to measure issues

The most comprehensive analysis of referenda voting and polls was presented at AAPOR in May 2021 by @jon_m_rob @cwarshaw and @johnmsides

60 years of referenda and polling and accuracy and errros, w/o cherry picking.

See the full slide deck here.

The fit of outcomes to polls is pretty good, but there are also some systematic errors: more popular issues underperform on referenda, and more unpopular ones overperform, doing better than expected.

The fit varies across issues, but the relationship of polls to outcomes are positive in almost all issues.

Read the full set of slides. They highlight some of the criticism but provide the most comprehensive analysis of issue polls when we have an objective standard for accuracy. The results are pretty encouraging for issue polling’s relevance.

Issue polling may be criticized but those with policy interests use them. In the absence of public issue polls, the interest groups would know what they show but the public wouldn’t. That seems a good reason to have public issue polling.

There are plenty of examples. Here is one from the right, from HeritageAction.

Pew did a careful look at how much issue polls might be affected by the type of errors we see in election (horserace) polls. Probably not by very much.

Here is the Pew analysis.

Fivethirtyeight.com also looked at issue polls: Their analysis is here.

An election poll off by 6 points is a big miss & we saw a number of those in 2016 & 2020. But issues are not horseraces. If an issue poll shows a 6 point difference between pro- and anti-sides, 53-47, we’d characterize that as “closely divided opinion.” If it shows 66% in favor to 34% against, a 6 point error wouldn’t matter much. The balance of opinion would be clear regardless. Also, issue preference is not the same as intensity so good issue polling analysis needs to look at whether the issue has a demonstrable impact on other things like vote, or turnout, or if the issue dominates all others for some respondents. Plenty of issues have big majorities by low intensity or impact.

There are good reasons to be careful about interpreting issue polls. But the outright rejection of them is not grounded in empirical research. I suspect it is to deny that “my side” is ever in the minority. It is especially in the interest of interest groups to dismiss them, even as they rely on them.