"Rasmussen: How Poll Questions Affect The Answers (And Why Our Obama Approval Numbers Are Different)

[Clio the Leo]

I dont typically follow polls on a day to day basis, but I thought this was an interesting article...

Rasmussen: How Poll Questions Affect The Answers (And Why Our Obama Approval Numbers Are Different)
Eric Kleefeld | November 30, 2009, 1:00PM

Rasmussen has released a new set of polls illustrating how the exact questioning of a poll can subtly affect the answers -- and perhaps explaining why their own daily survey puts President Obama's approval lower than nearly everyone else.

Respondents were asked their approval of Obama using Rasmussen's usual format: Do they strongly approve, somewhat approval, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove? The answer here is 47% approval, with 28% strongly approving, to 52% disapproval, including 41% who strongly disapprove.

However, Rasmussen got a different result when they asked the question as a simple "approve" or "disapprove." Obama then enters positive territory at 50% approval, 46% disapproval -- in line with a lot of other polls, such as the Gallup survey.

From the pollster's analysis:

It's important to note that the difference could be just statistical noise in a survey with a +/- 4 percentage point margin of sampling error.

However, the difference is consistent with years of observations that Rasmussen Reports polling consistently shows a higher level of disapproval for the President than other polls. That may reflect the fact that there may be some people willing to offer a "somewhat disapprove" rating rather than say they "disapprove."

Some of the gap on the negative side is probably the result of using an automated polling system (see methodology). Automated polls almost always record a higher negative rating for all politicians--regardless of party or ideology--than operator-assisted polls. One theory is that automated polls pick up a more honest reaction on the negative side because people may be a bit reluctant to tell an operator that they don't like someone (especially someone they've never met).

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/rasmussen-how-poll-questions-affect-the-answers-and-why-our-obama-approval-numbers-are-different.php?ref=fpb

[bluestateguy]

1. I could say somewhat disapprove if I disagreed with one or two decisions he made

especially if those issues happened to be big in the news of late.

[Marsala]

4. Most of DU would fall into "somewhat disapprove"...

...the rest would be "strongly disapprove".

[Birthmark]

2. Weird

Rasmussen consistently had Bush higher than other polls. All bullshit aside, they might want to have a look at the number of Republicans in their polls and compare that to the actual number of Republicans in the populace.

[zbdent]

3. It's ironic ... one of the people who was pushing this particular point

was the drug-addled gasbag himself, Rush Limbaugh ... I would guess as far back as "The Way Things Ought To Be" ... but I'd have to check ...