There’s a lot going on here. The big difference between Monmouth and Marist results appears to be the former’s inclusion of the explicit “no opinion” in the question as read. This seems to lessen the number of respondents who select the “tied to spending\/cuts” response for Monmouth compared with Marist, which only records \u201cdon\u2019t know\u201d as an option if the respondent volunteers they cannot choose between the two stated responses. This also suggests, that the \u201cclean\u201d debt bill option has somewhat more deliberative support than the one that ties it to spending cuts. However, that\u2019s just one possible read of the variance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The difference between Monmouth\/Marist and CNN, though, is a little harder to pin down. Marist’s question specifies that tying the debt to spending cuts may lead to default, which may make that option less attractive than in CNN\u2019s question. CNN includes a separate, third response about allowing default, thus making the consequences of spending cuts less alarming in their question less alarming than in Marist\u2019s. It may also introduce some double-barreled potential (i.e., tapping opinion on more than one issue in the same question). Monmouth\u2019s question does not reference a possible default at all, which means that some respondents may think about that outcome in considering whether to choose the \u201ctie it to spending\u201d option and others may not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s also possible that the big difference with CNN compared to the other two polls is a “3-response” conundrum, where in the absence of fully formed opinion respondents gravitate to the middle option. One thing to note about the CNN question is that polling generally shows majority support for specific federal spending programs. The results to this debt question would seem to contradict those findings. I think the “no matter what” wording in CNN’s clean bill response option and the “damn the torpedoes, let\u2019 go into default\u201d option at the other end of the spectrum may make the middle response option that much more “reasonable” for people regardless of its actual content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, what’s my take on the polls? When polling low awareness\/salience issues, there are no perfect questions. We end up tapping into somewhat ephemeral public opinion where there are few right or wrongs in question wording. It\u2019s the interpretation of the results we need to be careful about. You cannot assume that poll participants are responding literally to how a question is worded. Therefore, the more questions pollsters ask on these types of issues the better able we are to get a handle on the conditions under which public opinion is malleable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That also requires folks in the media to actually READ the questions. It’s the first thing I say to journalists when I\u2019m asked about any variations between polls. Many of you may shake your heads and say \u201cNah, that can\u2019t be it.\u201d But it often is. If only we could take a sample of public opinion like we extract a biological specimen. But we can\u2019t. Measuring how human beings form, express, and act on their attitudes is an inexact science because the very nature of opinion is always in flux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As to my takeaway on the debt issue? Most Americans don’t have a strong opinion on the best way to raise the ceiling or what that even means in broader terms. And they won’t have one unless there’s a default that impacts them directly. What we do know is that the public sees a partisan debate over the issue. Which means the most likely outcome is that partisan identity will drive who gets blamed for any unhappiness that comes out of a deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Patrick Murray There have been some head-scratching over the seeming differences between results of recent polls from Monmouth, CNN, and Marist-NPR on the debt ceiling. I posted a Twitter thread about this, but here it is unrolled and with some additional context. If reputable pollsters have very different results on the same topic, first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802255008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802255008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802255008"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802255008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802255040,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802255008\/revisions\/40802255040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802255008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802255008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802255008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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