More on the SC Poll

So much to digest on this poll, which is why we usually release them over multiple days:

-Mark Sanford's approval rating is 31% in the district with 59% of voters disapproving of him. SC-2 voted pretty similarly to statewide trends last year so I'm guessing that's about where his numbers are statewide. A slight 51% majority thinks he should resign. 70% of Democrats and 47% of independents but only 37% of Republicans think he needs to go. Wonder what those same folks thought about Bill Clinton?

-Less than half of Republicans think Obama's speech to the schoolchildren on Tuesday was appropriate. 46% say it was, 40% say it wasn't. 93% of Democrats and 69% of independents think it was fine, making the overall numbers 68% thinking it was appropriate and 22% thinking it was not. The 22% thinking it was not perhaps not so coincidentally aligns with the 22% of respondents who thought Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

-Voters give pretty contradictory answers to health care questions. They narrowly support a public option, 44-39. When you instead describe it as 'a health insurance plan that would allow people who can't afford health insurance elsewhere to purchase it' created by the federal government, and don't use the public option terminology support is 55-35. But when you ask about Barack Obama's health care plan folks oppose it 48-45. I think the public supports what Obama wants to do, he's just losing the messaging battle so far. We'll see if that changes in the coming weeks.

-81% of Democrats and 74% of independents but only 57% of Republicans say they watched Obama's speech Wednesday night, more evidence that he was inevitably going to do well in the instant polls. Not much you can do about that. Also there's no way 70% of SC-2 really watched Obama's speech but if there's one thing lie to pollsters about, even automated ones, it's their level of engagement. We find results like this all the time about whether people watched debates or speeches, plan to vote, are knowledgeable about an issue, etc.