We're going to have our Virginia poll. Tuesday will be the newest numbers for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General and then Wednesday we'll have the latest on Barack Obama's popularity in the state, what impact he and Sarah Palin would have in campaigning for Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell respectively, and whether Virginians think he was born in the United States or not.
In a result making me want to bang my head against the table, the first round of calls for our Virginia poll this afternoon founds voters in the state almost evenly split on whether they thought the President was born in the US. We're polling North Carolina next week, and I am almost definitely going to throw a question on there asking people whether they think Hawaii is a state or not.
Speaking of that, we'll be finalizing the North Carolina questionnaire on Monday and if you think there are any burning questions we need to ask there might be room for one or two more.
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19 comments:
"In a result making me want to bang my head against the table, the first round of calls for our Virginia poll this afternoon founds voters in the state almost evenly split on whether they thought the President was born in the US."
ahahahahahhaah
Tom,
Are you really going to cite to Hays Research Group on Twitter?
Tell me, have you ever missed a poll as badly as Hays missed the McCain/Obama matchup in Alaska? Check out their final general election Alaska poll.
http://www.haysresearch.com/OC110208.htm
McCain/Palin
46.6%
Undecided - Lean McCain/Palin
1.7%
Obama/Biden
43.9%
Undecided - Lean Obama/Biden
0.7%
Other Candidate
2.0%
Don't Know / Refused
5.1%
Anyone who isn't a total idiot would have looked at these results from Hays and used it as toilet paper. And now you are citing a pollster that was off about 20 points about the general election results in her own state as representative of how Alaskans view their former governor.
Come on Tom, you know better than that.
You may want to word your HI question more along the lines of, "Is HI a part of the US", since even if it was still merely a US territory, anyone born there would be a US citizen.
please do a poll in Alaska, obama vs palin
"We're polling North Carolina next week, and I am almost definitely going to throw a question on there asking people whether they think Hawaii is a state or not."
...wow, talk about liberal condescension. And you wonder why Democrats are often viewed as snotty pricks.
Tom,
Hayes research is the worst pollster in Alaska. Here are reasons why.
1. It is a sample of 400 adults.
2. Hayes doesn't do party breakdown and Regional breakdown.
Alaska is a hard state to poll. Hayes always underpolls Republicans 8-11 pts. Here are some examples.
Hayes only McCain getting 46.6% of the vote. He ended up at 59%. Hayes had Don Young and Ted Stevens losing big. Young won and Stevens lost narrowly. I bet you that Palin is viewed well by atleast 54% of Alaskans still.
How likely is it that likely VA voters are 50% birther? This has to be sampling error or something that balances out in your subsequent nights of calling.
News flash Brandon, given undisputable proof that Obama was born in Hawaii, and clearly a definitive number of Americans living anywhere except the south willing to acknowledge that Obama was born in the U.S., what can be the only other explanation? Either people in the South are:
1) bitter and angry about the election, and are willing to lie to pollsters to show their anger
2) clearly ignoring all facts in listening only to what they hear on the internet, hate radio or Fox News (and even there O'Reilly has tried in vain to dissuade the birthers)
3) People in the South know the facts (that Obama was born in Hawaii), but do not accept that Hawaii officially became our 50th state in 1959.
So who's the prick?
3)
Brandon,
Just wait until the poll reveals that only 40 percent of republicans think that Hawaii is a state. It's not condescension when a large group of people deliberately ignore facts.
Stephen,
If you would care to have actually read what I was quoting, you would notice that I wasn't trying to prop-up the notion that Obama isn't a citizen.... I was pointing out what a snotty, condescending thing Tom is implying about North Carolinians (wondering whether they know Hawaii is a state). I'm sorry if as a North Carolinian I found that somewhat offensive. But your diatribe about Southerners and anyone that isn't a liberal Democrat, while insightful, seems like it would have been a better response for another post. But thanks for kind of helping me make my point (Dems=know-it-all prick).
Wooh, you Obama supporters are really on edge these days. Is it because your guy is tanking in the polls a little bit sooner than you had hoped?
Every pollster out there had at least the Begich-Stevens race completely wrong though. And the internal trendlines of the Hays poll are... shocking.
Perhaps you're right, there is a fair bit of condescension regarding the liberal reaction to the poll. I'm sorry if you think it's directed at you, but it's not. You clearly don't share the same views as the Birthers (at least I don't think you do).
But to be fair, if you were to give me a poll that said only 42% of Democrats believed that the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were perpetrated by Al Qaida, while the remainder either believed they were orchestrated by George W. Bush or not sure, Republicans would call us kooky, stupid, dangerous and insane, and they would be right!
It's the willful deviation from reality by a significant chunk of self-identified Republicans that is what's so troubling about the poll, and the fact that a vast majority of that deviation occurs in the South leads many of us to wonder just what the hell is going on down there.
I grew up in Atlanta, so it's not like I'm not familiar with the south, or don't have pride in my hometown (we hosted the Olympics!), but to be honest, the numbers in the Research 2K poll really don't surprise me.
I know plenty of smart people in North Carolina and I also know it is home to some of the best Universities in the world. But as this poll shows, there's also something rotten going on in the South.
I have some suggested followups to "Do you believe Barack Obama is a US Citizen?" If yes:
"Have you ever used soap?" If no:
"Have you ever seen soap?" If no:
"Have you ever worn shoes or used toilet paper?" If no:
"How many rusted out cars do you have in your front yard?" If more than 4:
"Please list the ABCs". If unable:
"Is Sarah Palin intelligent?" If yes:
"Is Mountain Dew full of all of the vitamins and minerals that a baby needs?" If yes:
"Please jump off a cliff."
As a North Carolinian (rube or not, your choice), I'd like to point out that North Carolina AND Virginia BOTH voted for Obama last year. So I'm thinking somebody's got a screwy poll.
There needs to be some sort of adjustment in the poll questions. (See below) Lots of people don't have much knowledge of basic geography and American history that should have been imparted by about 8th grade.
Everyone on the mainland has to keep in mind what most residents of Hawaii already know: a substantial number of Americans are unaware that Hawaii is a state even NOW. Having lived in the islands almost twenty years, its something that comes up all the time when dealing with mainlanders Unless they've been to Hawaii, or read about it, most Americans have a vague conception of it being connected to America, Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, etc. "Statehood" is not the first thing that people think about Hawaii.
Its no wonder that a substantial majority of Americans (and in the South) thinks that because Obama was born in Hawaii, he wasn't born in the U.S. Forget about statehood in '59, they think Hawaii is still some sort of foreign territory.
Remember Cokie Roberts, one the most respected members of the media elite, a charter member of the political/mass media inner-circle. Wealthy, educated and a Southerner. Direct quote from her in Summer 2009: Hawaii is "some sort of foreign exotic place."
So why not a control question on the surveys about Obama and his birthplace? ie. "Did you know that Hawaii has been a state since 1959?"
Can we have another Civil War, this time to FORCE the South to secede?
Really, what other country has to deal with a huge region filled with retards?
I would honestly suggest that the Hawaii question (in some form) might be good to throw in at some point. It's not a joke; you'll probably get a non-trivial number of negative responses to it.
More realistically, I would like to see (if you don't have it planned) a crosstab on birthers and news sources. I think that would go a long way towards explaining a lot of this stuff.
Ha, Many Americans think you need a passport to go to New Mexico.
Well, and it doesn't help that you have to fill out customs forms when you go to Hawaii...
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