A trio of polls were released last week on Governor Chris Christie\u2019s budget, particularly focusing on school aid cuts and state unions. According to at least one report, these polls were \u201cseemingly at odds\u201d with one another. But if you look at what the three polls actually asked, they really tell separate pieces of a cohesive \u2013 but nuanced \u2013 story.<\/p>\n
The Eagleton Poll<\/a> found 57% of New Jerseyans feel that school aid should not be cut and 72% are opposed to \u201cmaking it easier\u201d to lay off teachers to solve local budget problems.<\/p>\n The Monmouth University\/Gannett New Jersey Poll (Nov. 2, 2009)<\/a> found 68% of the public see the cuts as being unfair to some groups (with teachers being among the top \u201cvictims\u201d) and Governor Christie is seen as the more negative party in the NJEA dust-up, and ultimately more responsible for the impending teacher layoffs.<\/p>\n The Rasmussen Poll<\/a> found 65% of likely voters favor having school employees (including teachers, administrators and other workers) take a one year wage freeze to help make up for the deficit in state funding.<\/p>\n I really don\u2019t find anything too contradictory in those results. Public opinion is rarely black and white (as national polling about the health reform debate dramatically illustrates). The real difference in these three polls is that each chose to cover a different facet of the issue.<\/p>\n Both the Eagleton and Monmouth polls asked residents about their opinion of the governor\u2019s proposed budget and how it will affect them personally.<\/p>\n Eagleton also asked quite a few questions about what areas of the budget should or should not be cut and what, if any, tax increases the public is willing to accept in order to avoid those cuts (none, apparently).<\/p>\n Monmouth\u2019s survey included questions on impressions of Christie\u2019s budget in comparison to Jon Corzine\u2019s first budget (trends are a wonderful tool for providing context) and a focus on communication with the general public, including the NJEA battle and reaction to key terms used to describe the budget (e.g. \u201ctough\u201d and \u201cfair\u201d).<\/p>\n Rasmussen\u2019s poll asked four questions, mainly focused on state worker concessions to deal with the budget crisis.<\/p>\n In terms of election polling, Rasmussen has a very good track record and, by my reckoning, had the most accurate final pre-election poll in last year\u2019s gubernatorial race. [And admittedly, Monmouth, along with Zogby, YouGov, and Democracy Corp, came up with the wrong end of the stick in the final days of that campaign. Eagleton did not issue a final election poll.]<\/p>\n But election polling and policy polling are as different as meteorology and climatology. Both start off from the same theoretical premise, but election polling rises and falls on a pollster\u2019s ability to selectively sample and predict the behavior of a subset of the total population. The heart of good policy polling is question wording<\/a>. [That’s why it\u2019s really important to read the actual poll questions<\/a> on controversial policy issues before reporting the results.]<\/p>\n Differences in question wording can be just a matter of perspective. Simply put, each pollster comes to the field from a different background, e.g. political scientist, policy or communication researcher, partisan strategist, and so on. These hats inform both the topics they choose to cover and how they word the questions.<\/p>\n The pollster\u2019s agenda also informs what segments of the population are considered worth including in the measurement of public opinion on a policy issue. Do they survey the entire general public affected by the issue or just likely voters who can inflict electoral consequences?<\/p>\n Regardless of the pollsters’ varying agendas, these three polls taken together tell a much more complete story than any of the polls separately. You just have to do a little work to put the pieces together.<\/p>\n The notion that the public wants their taxes lowered but recoil from cutting valued services and programs is a phenomenon we\u2019ve seen for years.<\/p>\n So why is it any more difficult to fathom that the public believes the state payroll is a drain on resources and wants the unions to make concessions, but at the same time feels that the governor\u2019s \u201cin your face\u201d approach may not be the best way to go about it?<\/p>\n