Public opinion of Black Lives Matter protests in Wisconsin, police behavior and related topics.
This is a dry look at the data and what has changed recently.
All data from before the Jacob Blake shooting and events in Kenosha. 1/n
After the ABC/WaPo poll excitement, here is Biden +6 over Trump, 44-38.
The lesson should be this is likely a close race, and we’ll therefore see polls showing different leaders, and lead changes.
Follow the trends, and appreciate the uncertainty.
w/ today's state pop ESTIMATES from we'd expect these gains/losses in House seats h/t
@MetroGram
AZ +1
CA -1
CO +1
FL +2
IL -1
MI -1
MN -1
MT +1
NC +1
NY -2
OH -1
OR +1
PA -1
RI -1
TX +3
WV -1
Last seat hinges on small pop diffs
Wisconsin Supreme Court primary turnout is smashing past records.
2020 total vote was 705,138
That was record for primary.
2023 total is 759,230 with 71% in. On track to perhaps 1M in the end.
Our new national
@MULawPoll
is out
DeSantis gains support, now moving up to a tie with Biden among registered voters nationwide. His support has slowly but steadily increased over the year. Biden has remained stable. 15% wish for an alternative to these two. 1/n
Which ever way the Court race lands, this makes the 1 point governor’s race last year look more indicative of the balance in Wisconsin than Baldwin’s 10 point Senate win or Dallet’s 11 pt Court win in 2018. Further evidence Wisconsin is a tight swing state.
But before I turn in…
Let us praise Wisconsin election clerks tonight. They have been the heroes under extraordinary circumstances in making this election work despite everything.
And the voters, absentee or in-person. You too keep our little republic.
There is a new CNN poll out today with approval at 35, disapproval at 58. That may seem a surprise with polling averages at 43 (HuffPo) and 42 (RCP) or 39.4 (538) or 44 (me, sort of).
It’s not. And it raises an issue.
Let me elaborate. 1/x
Census released new county population ESTIMATES for 2020 today. These are NOT the final Census count, which will not be out until fall.
The final pops will differ but this gives a idea what to expect.
I've been shocked to hear several sources I respect get the midterm seat loss story wrong. So here is my effort to clarify.
1. The president's party almost always loses House seats, but there have been *4* exceptions since 1862: 1902, 1934, 1998 & 2002.
1/n
In my
@MULawPoll
yesterday 7% were "undecided or declined to answer". Most of those were early voters declining to answer. But "allocate" them by fav/unfav to Biden or Trump and they split equally, bring us to 50% Biden 45% Trump 2% Jorgensen & 2 still unknown.
It seems widely believed that Trump has been boosted by indictments, at least among Republicans. My
@mulawpoll
*national* doesn’t show that.
W/ Reps Trump fav is down 6 and unfav up 5 comparing Jan-July 2023 to Jan-July 2022. W/ lean Rep fav down 6, unfav up 5 also.
Old song, added verse. Turnout rises pretty dramatically with age, but each new generation has turned out at a lower rate when the same age as their elders. I’d love to see a surge in turnout but this is the challenge. Here midterm turnout only.
A reminder of what an average midterm looks like: -26 House seats and -2 Senate seats for the president’s party.
We are a long way from the average this year.
This change in opinion of ACA/Obamacare is something to watch this fall. Supporters may not be as vulnerable to attacks that worked 6 or 4 years ago. See also
One of the great failures of Democrats was to win the messaging war over Obamacare, which became an epithet for everything wrong with US healthcare. I found WV voters benefiting from ACA who cursed its name.
When asked the question: If it were a choice between just the two of them, who would you prefer as the Republican nominee for president in 2024:
Donald Trump 40%
Ron DeSantis60%
(Among Republican & ind leaning Reps)
My Twitter mental health advice:
I create private lists of good people in fields were I'm an interested amateur. Astronomy, archaeology and medieval manuscripts, for example.
Take a break and make lists of good things. Read them regularly.
I posted a map of West Virginia's 2020 presidential vote yesterday. It is remarkable that a Democrat could win the Senate seat, let alone provide the 50th seat.
Some asked when WV became so red. Here you go. The transformation is pretty striking.
2000 was the turning point.
Turnout was a big story in Wisconsin Gov race with big surges in Dane, Milwaukee and Waukesha.
BUT if county turnout had been identical to 2014, the 2018 splits in each county would still have Dem Evers winning by 0.69% vs 1.12% with 2018 turnout. So credit TO for +0.43 ppts.
On nonacademic jobs for PhDs:
Really important to make it clear that non-academic is not a second choice or inferior option. One thought: include more applied, nonacademic research on our syllabi. Readings from Pew as well as APSR. CookPolitical as well as Jacobson.
New Gallup poll on Roe v Wade: 64% keep Roe, 28% overturn.
Pew deep dive on abortion opinion 1995-2017:
Pew shows ambivalence is common
25% legal in all cases
33% legal in most
24% illegal in most
16% illegal in all cases
Finished
@MULawPoll
for tomorrow. Release off my desk. Bourbon poured. Only one thing preventing my sitting, relaxing and listening to some classic Genesis.... I guess I can sit in a different chair.
Trump continues to trail Biden, by 10 points in this poll. Biden lead has been increasing since March. DeSantis was a point stronger than Trump vs Biden in March & Sept, but now 10 points stronger on margin vs Biden. 2/n
A substantial majority approved of protests in June, but this fell to an even split, 48-48 in August. Black or Hispanic approval remained high while white approval fell and became net negative. Tables by region and party are included in the report. 2/n
Important paper on absentee voting in 2020
“states newly implementing no-excuse absentee voting for 2020 did not see larger increases in turnout than states that did not”
Increased Dem absentee votes offset by less Dem in-person votes, little net effect
Long thread: One of these is not like the others. The generic ballot average or trend has taken a dip recently, but it is largely driven by a dramatic change in one poll, the Ipsos/Reuters poll. 1/
This still stuns me. Four of the last six Wisconsin Presidential elections have been decided by less than 1 percentage point, and by less than 23,000 votes each.
Approval of the US Supreme Court has dropped to 38%, down from 44% in May and 54% in March
Among those favoring striking down Roe approval rose to 83% in July; among those opposed to striking it down, approval fell to 11%
One year ago, 60% overall approved, 57% Rep, 59% Dem
1/
Op-ed in WSJ talks about “Biden Republicans” & Dem opportunity to convert them as w “Reagan Dems” in 1980s Maybe, but at this point, in Wisconsin, it is a small group, 3.8% of all registered voters. Small but not trivial in a state decided by 0.77% in 2016
“Trump Dems” tho? 1.5%
Wisconsin UNOFFFICIAL votes.
The map of the vote margin by county, and of the shift in margin from 2016 to 2020.
A familiar map of red and blue counties. Only Sauk and Door flipped, R->D
Margin change notable that WOW and BOW (Fox Valley) both getting smaller Rep margins
1/n
Wisconsin held a statewide election for Superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) today....
and a hell of a lot of people turned out to vote.
99.92% wards reporting. 1/n
Here is net Protasiewicz minus Kelly VOTES.
Dane & MKE huge. WOW no longer offset those margins as they once did.
Many small counties have small net but may be lopsided percentage. Still sum(net)=who wins.
Final Gallup poll on Trump approval.
"As President Donald Trump prepares to leave the White House, 34% of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president, the worst evaluation of his presidency."
The path of Nixon approval during Watergate keeps coming up. I posted this last August on partisan differences and the events during 1973 when virtually all changes in approval took place.
Shout out and thank you! to the 10,643 resondents to the
@MULawPoll
in the "long 2020" since we started asking about the election in Aug. 2019. Having you tell us what you thought in this interesting time, about policy as well as candidates, helps our democracy understand itself
Thanks to
@sbmitche
for asking of Trump "Is this the least dynamic approval in history?”
Yes. Yes it is. For the first 479 days. DJT’s St Dev of 2.5 is lower than JFK (2.9) or LBJ (3.0) over 1st 479 days. Others all well over 3.
Rigid R app and D disapp are big part of story.
Survey & social science grad students (and interested civilians) this is a great history of how surveys came to be. Not on your stats syllabus but important for deep understanding of methodology.
This is stunning. Compare the successful but gradual change in support for same sex marriage over 3 decades, which was itself impressive but not fast. (See 2/2 below)
Also a big shout-out to
@Civiqs
for producing such a valuable time series on this issue. 1/2
White respondents overwhelmingly feel safe around the police, by 90%-8%.
Among Black or Hispanic respondents 57% feel safe, 36% feel mostly anxious. There has been little change over 4 years since 2016.
3/n
Add another to the list. Bullock County (another small, mostly black county) w/ 100% reporting, turnout at 71.8% of Presidential turnout. That is amazing. This is a definite pattern. Assuming the urban areas see the same pattern (can't assume that yet), Jones looks good.
Tonight’s results from Virginia will set off a frenzy of “what this means” for 2022. And it should.
But midterms are consistently bleak for the president’s party. Exceptions have come with 60% Pres approval, something not within reach now.
This history can’t be wished away 1/2
At last! A new Minnesota poll. MN was close in 2016
“Biden’s advantage ...comes mainly from women (+26 points), Whites with a college degree (+25), seniors (+18), and suburban voters (+12). Trump’s up by 4 points among men and by 2 points among Whites without a college degree.”
The gap in turnout between midterm and presidential years is enormous for younger voters, with a still significant but narrowing gap for older voters. There is no magic age for higher participation, rather a continuous growth of turnout with each year of age.
The indictments of Donald Trump have *not* boosted him in the polls, either for favorability or for his support in the GOP primary. This claim keeps being repeated as if the data support it. It does not.
There has been a lot of recent talk about record turnout in 2020. Here is one bit of that evidence: interest in the upcoming election over the last 2 cycles plus this year. Especially striking to compare late surge in ’12 & ’16 to where we are already.
Pretty striking result in Suffolk poll of Nevada likely voters. 47% vote to change direction vs 27% support Biden's direction.
Plus tight Gov & Sen races
Story:
Toplines:
Nixon, Watergate and Partisan Opinion. This topic comes up often enough these days that I think it worthwhile to lay out the facts in some detail in hopes of clarifying how partisans and the public at large reacted and when. /1
*Preliminary* look at polls and votes.
Mean margin error was -5.8 (too much for Biden)
Mean absolute margin error 6.4
Error was fairly constant in mid-vote range (blue line)
In states that have been called 90.4% got winner right, 7.6% got winner wrong, 2% had tie in poll
With 93% of expected vote in, here are the county splits between the two liberal court candidates (Protasiewicz + Mitchell) and the two conservatives (Kelly + Dorow).
A bit more blue than Gov or Sen races in 2022. Primary may not predict April!
Also not final votes!
I’ve been looking for details on a supposed “nuclear powered” Russian cruise missile since reports of an accident last week, with little success. Now
@CherylRofer
has an excellent write up of the issues in design and problems to overcome. Thanks!
While I *know* we all love the Needle, the truly great things on the NYT site are these charts of the outstanding vote, and the trend in reported and estimated vote. This is my focus for the evening. Scroll down below Needle.
Polling getting attention today, but let’s think electoral college.
Most states are very unlikely to flip. But what about the pale blue and fewer pale red states?
These are the usual suspects, from MI through NC. How they change over next 17 months is the ballgame.
“that Marquette poll might have told the most important story for the 2024 presidential election: The general election could very well come down to the “somewhat disapprovers” — the voters who say they somewhat disapprove of President Joe Biden’s job.”
New voter file estimates for Wisconsin from
@L2political
If I’m reading this right, they estimate Wisconsin registered voters are 34.2% Rep, 31.6% Dem, or +2.6 Rep. My
@MULawPoll
data for 2018 has it at either +1 Rep or tied. Pretty good agreement.
This has been an issue for a long time. Failing to bother to understand the not very complicated difference between one who aggregates polls and one who conducts polls hints at lack of basic knowledge of the subject.
Pretty stunning vote for Protasiewicz in the WOW counties;
Waukesha 42%
Ozaukee 47%
Washington 33%
All substantially better than the liberal candidate did in 2019.
Fundamentals thread
The current conventional wisdom is for the midterm to be somewhat better than average for the president's party in the House. (I set aside the Senate here.) The fundamentals doubt that, as we'll see. 1/n
In addition to the WOW counties (Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington) there are the BOW counties around Green Bay (Brown, Outagamie and Winnebago) and the BAD counties on Lake Superior (Bayfield, Ashland and Douglas).
This allows Wisconsin to have a BAD BOW WOW.
Mnemonics R us.
White respondents say police killings of Black Americans are "isolated incidents", 47%, vs "part of a larger pattern", 44%. Among Black or Hispanic respondents 17% say isolated, 79% say larger pattern. 4/n
YouGov poll: 56% disagreed that it's appropriate to separate parents & kids who cross the border illegally in order to discourage others from crossing the border illegally. 27% agreed.
Quinnipiac poll: 66% oppose separating parents-kids to discourage others. 27% supported.