11 Comments
User's avatar
Will Tucker-Ray's avatar

Trump saying today that he's never seen China with wind energy / windmills (they're the biggest wind energy producer) - made me wonder: how many Americans think that China has no windmills / no wind energy? How normal / abnormal is the Trump belief here?

Milan Singh's avatar

I don’t think the question you wrote on single-payer healthcare is particularly informative. The question is all upside (“the government provides health insurance for all Americans”) but does not address potential tradeoffs of adopting single payer (such as higher taxes or spending cuts to other program or more borrowing). If you write questions like this (“do you support or oppose X policy proposal”) with no discussion of tradeoffs or partisan labeling you can get a lot of things to poll well but that’s because you’re taking an inaccurate snapshot of public opinion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquiescence_bias

I’d be interested in seeing a single-payer question (or battery of questions) that include pro and con arguments (of the form “proponents of single-payer say it will deliver X benefits, while opponents say would would bring Y costs”) or partisan labeling of pro/con statements or some qualifier (like “would you favor single-payer even if it meant paying higher taxes”). Or maybe test some messages from elected Ds/Rs or partisan advocacy groups on Medicare for All.

Diana M. Smith's avatar

I wish we had better line of sight re: what about the system people think most needs change--e.g., money in politics, unlimited terms, influence of special interest groups...? It's too vague as it stands.

Ray Valek's avatar

I read that more people are identifying as independents; so I’m wondering if pollsters are oversampling Republicans, which would make Trump look more popular than he is.

noeire's avatar

"Border security": the 4-point uptick in 'support'. Any indication that may be MOE or is it for real, real -- ?

Cinna the Poet's avatar

Great news about the House b. What about the Senate?

The Senate is more important. Without a majority there, we can't stop Trump's judicial and executive nominations.

Are we just giving up on this?

Joe's avatar

Thank you for continuing to break out Border Security from Immigration generally. The Republican accomplishment of convincing people that they are one issue, and that Immigration is nothing but enforcement and protection from immigrants, is an underappreciated reason they've been able to cause so much damage (and is still reflected in Economist/YouGov and many other polls). I think one mechanism that's creating Trump's drop on Immigration in polls over the past month is that Americans have begun to associate the term with deportations and state terror rather than with Border Security at all (which, after all, could easily be seen as part of Foreign Policy in the future).

Maybe a question on that in a future poll? What do you see as the most important element of immigration policy - border security, naturalization/integration, enforcement/deportation, importing skills/students, importing labor force, etc.?

Derek's avatar

63% of your polling sample say the political system “needs major changes”. Could a future poll ask what changes they favour? With prompts for things like: get big money out of poltics; restrain Presidential powers and immunities; stop gerrymandering; ranked choice voting; reform Supreme Court.

The Coke Brothers's avatar

They want a permanent Daddy with a bigger ass to kiss

LiverpoolFCfan's avatar

Thanks for the clarifying data, Mr. Morris. It gives me hope that maybe we can right this ship of state someday.

Keep up the good work!

The Coke Brothers's avatar

Clearly 40% of American voters are cultists who will support trump no matter what