ABC/Washington Post post-speech poll(Their demos and internals make very little sense)

Washington Post ^

[jeltz25]

a. Health care

-------- Approve -------- ------- Disapprove ------ No NET Strongly Somewhat NET Somewhat Strongly opinion 9/12/09 48 32 15 48 10 38 4 8/17/09 46 27 19 50 8 42 5 7/18/09 49 25 24 44 11 33 7 6/21/09 53 27 26 39 10 29 9 4/24/09 57 NA NA 29 NA NA 13

[jeltz25]

Reading the recent ABC/Post poll, it's hard to understand how they arrived at their figures.

First they polled adults which is not the best method as likely or registered voters is usually considered more acceptable.

2nd, they have a breakdown of 32D 21R 43I. Even last year in the worst atmosphere for the GOP in 40 years when every Republican had known for the past 6 weeks that they had no shot the vote was still 32R and they want us to believe it's down to 21? The GOP was at 25 in August and after a month in which more people got upset at the health care bill and Obama's popularity declined, the GOP lost 20% of its supporters? Please

They have liberals at 24% and conservatives at 36%. Liberals were at 20 in July and August. All of a sudden they have a 20% increase? Conservatives were +17 in August and +18 in July and now they're only at +12? Sure.

Also, while support remains tepid at best, the internals would suggest the plan is much less popular.

Some numbers: By 40-22 people think the plan will weaken medicare

By 40-20 they say it will make health care costs worse

By 37-11 they say it will make coverage worse

By 38-35 they say it will make the quality of health care for most people worse(by comparison in 1993 people said Clinton's plan would make it better by 50-19)

By 32-16 they say it will make their own health care worse(Clinton was even at a similar point and never fell to only 16% saying it would be better)

By 54-41 they say the more they hear about it the less they like it(about the same as with Clinton's)

By 65-31 they say the stimulus has not helped the economy

In Feb Obama was at 46-14 better than expected he's now down to 42-31, from +32 to +11

On health care and Obama vs the GOP in June he led 55-27, it's now 48-36, from +28 to +12

On the economy it was 61-24 in April no wit's 48-37. From +37 to +11.

On health care he's gone from 57-29 approval in April to 48-48 now. A net loss of -28.

Overall he's gone from 69-26 approval in April to 54-43 now, a net decline of -32.

Given all of that, it's hard to see how the support for the plan is at 46 support 48 oppose. I'd think it'd be much worse.

The good news is that there are enough bad internals relating to cost, decreased quality of coverage, concerns over medicare and the deficit, that it can be stopped.

[LS]

If we’re at 46% support in a WaPo poll . . . this is as dead as Ted.

[xeno]

[Brad from Tennessee]

[First they polled adults which is not the best method as likely or registered voters. . .]

Right. “Adults” can include illiterates, illegal aliens, convicted felons and the severely psychotic.