Union Leader: Don’t confuse me with the facts

In an editorial defending the vote by Sen. Kelly Ayotte against expanding background checks for gun purchasers, the Union Leader claims the “great majority” of Granite Staters support her position:

A single poll’s number showing general support for unspecified “stronger” background checks does not mean that most constituents disagree with Sen. Ayotte’s position.

A single poll? Unspecified “stronger” background checks? Really?

I count at least three surveys of New Hampshire voters this year that include very specific proposals for expanding background checks. And all show overwhelming majorities of Granite Staters support the legislation that Ayotte voted against.

New England College (January 24, 2013)

“There is a national proposal for universal gun background checks for gun sales through dealers, shows, and private individuals. Do you support the idea of universal background checks for gun purchases?”

Strongly Support: 79%
Somewhat Support: 9%

WMUR Granite State Poll (February 8, 2013)

“Please tell me if you would favor or oppose … a law which would require background checks before people — including gun dealers — could buy guns at gun shows.”

Strongly favor: 84%
Somewhat favor: 7%

Public Policy Polling (April 23, 2013)

“Would you support or oppose requiring background checks on individuals who purchase guns at gun shows?”

Support: 75%

Fact checking Kevin Landrigan: Pants on fire!

In today’s Telegraph column, Kevin Landrigan asks if Sen. Kelly Ayotte is “in free fall” over her vote opposing expanded background checks for gun purchasers. “Let’s not carried away with this,” he answers.

Landrigan then proceeds to make his case by discrediting Public Policy Polling, the pollster who released a survey this week showing Ayotte’s favorability rating has dropped 15 points since her vote.

Let’s ignore the perjorative slant, (“Fortunately, we have other data, and it doesn’t affirm PPP’s finding, to be sure.”) and focus on Landrigan’s argument, which is misleading and deceptive.

Strike one: Apples and oranges

Landrigan compares the PPP survey to a poll by the UNH Survey Center: 

But the notion that Public Policy Polling’s survey found that Ayotte’s favorability dropped 15 points bears further scrutiny. … Fortunately, we have other data, and it doesn’t affirm PPP’s finding, to be sure.

[T]he UNH poll out last week didn’t find any slippage for Ayotte. She was at 50 to 25 percent compared to 51 to 28 percent two months earlier.

Remarkably, Landrigan fails to point out that the UNH poll was completed before Ayotte’s gun safety vote!

Strike two: Party identification and unskewed polls

Landrigan echoes the discredited “skewed poll” refrain we heard from Republicans in the last presidential election, by suggesting the PPP survey oversampled Democrats:

The PPP also gave Democrats a 6 percent advantage in respondents over identified Republicans, while actual party registration in the state has both parties close to a statistic tie. 

New York Times polling expert Nate Silver knocks down that argument:

But pollsters, at least if they are following the industry’s standard guidelines, do not choose how many Democrats, Republicans or independent voters to put into their samples — any more than they choose the number of voters for Mr. Obama or Mitt Romney…. 

[P]arty identification is not a hard-and-fast demographic characteristic like race, age or gender. Instead, it can change in reaction to news and political events from the party conventions to the Sept. 11 attacks. Since changes in public opinion are precisely what polls are trying to measure, it would defeat the purpose of conducting a survey if pollsters insisted that they knew what it was ahead of time.

And Landrigan fails to point out the party identification measured by the UNH survey, which gave Democrats an identical six-point advantage!

Strike three: Never let the facts get in the way of a good story

As if cherry picking results from a previous survey discredits the current one, Landrigan looks back at PPP polling from Ayotte’s 2010 race:

Keep in mind that the Democratic-leaning PPP had 2010 Democratic nominee Paul Hodes within four points of knocking off Ayotte just prior to that election. Ayotte won by 23.

This is wrong. On September 15, 2010, PPP did indeed release a poll showing Ayotte leading Hodes by four points, 47-43. Six weeks later however — “just prior to that election” — a survey from PPP indicated Ayotte had widened her lead to 15 points, 56-41. Those results were similar to the 18-point lead measured by UNH, which gave Ayotte a 54-36 lead.

Our ruling

Landrigan compares the results of the PPP survey taken after Ayotte’s gun safety vote to one taken before — without issuing a caveat. He suggests a six-point Democratic advantage in party identification makes the poll unreliable, but fails to mention survey professionals disagree — or that the UNH survey has the same breakdown. He misstates previous survey results. We rate Landrigan’s column Pants on Fire! 

Nir: Ayotte gun safety vote may mark her permanently

Yesterday, Public Policy Polling released a survey indicating Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s approval rating among New Hampshire voters has plunged — with evidence the drop is the result of her recent vote opposing expanded background checks for gun purchasers:

Ayotte now has a negative approval rating with 44% of voters giving her good marks and 46% disapproving. That’s down a net 15 points from the last time we polled on her, in October, when she had a 48% approval with 35% disapproving.

75% of New Hampshire voters- including 95% of Democrats, 74% of independents, and 56% of Republicans- say they support background checks. And 50% of voters in the state say Ayotte’s ‘no’ vote will make them less likely to support her in a future election, compared to just 23% who consider it to be a positive.

Of course, the question remains if the vote will hurt Ayotte in 2016 when she asks voters for a second term. Three years is a lifetime in politics, but Daily Kos Elections guru David Nir thinks it will:

Ayotte has to hope that ire over this vote fades with time, but it may not—this moment may wind up marking her permanently. And even though the issue won’t make the same kind of headlines it has lately for the next three years straight, whoever Ayotte’s opponent is in 2016 will be able to bludgeon her badly with her vote against common sense gun safety regulations that enjoy wide support….

It’s conventional wisdom to say that yeah, background checks poll well but the most intense voters are those who oppose them, which is in turn why it supposedly “makes sense” for politicians in red states to vote against them. But I think that view is stale, and I think there’s a real anger among many Americans over Congress’s failure to act here. A senator’s job approvals don’t plummet 15 points in the span of a few months unless people are genuinely pissed. And Ayotte doesn’t represent a red state. I suppose we’ll see in a few years’ time, but I think the old calculus has been upended, and I don’t think this one is going away.

OFA targets Ayotte in gun background check campaign

Sen. Kelly Ayotte is one of 13 Republican lawmakers targeted in the first ad campaign sponsored by Organizing for Action, the advocacy group formed by Obama campaign officials.

The online ads call on Ayotte to support a more robust background check system for gun sales. The beginning of the campaign coincided with a gathering of gun safety supporters in front of Ayotte’s Nashua office.

“We decided to focus on background-check loopholes today,” OFA spokeswoman Katie Hogan said. “It’s not that we don’t support the entire plan to curb gun violence; we do. But since there’s such a broad consensus about background checks, we thought it was important for us on our first ‘day of action’ to push members of Congress who have yet to take a stance.”

A recent WMUR Granite State Poll showed 94% of New Hampshire adults favor background checks for all gun sales to uncover felony convictions. 91% expressed support for closing the “gun show loophole” and requiring background checks for guns purchased at gun shows.

Ayotte has said she she is “willing to listen” to proposals that would improve the background check system.

WMUR/UNH Poll: Strong support for gun control

A new WMUR Granite State Poll indicates New Hampshire residents, including gun owners, are strongly in favor of legislation that would limit access to guns:

• 94% favor background checks on anyone attempting to purchase a gun to determine if they have been convicted of a felony

• 91% favor background checks before anyone could buy a gun at a gun show

• 84% favor a law to prevent people with mental illness from buying a gun

• 64% favor a ban on military-style assault weapons

• 63% favor a federal government database to track all gun sales

• 61% favor a ban on ammunition clips that hold more than 10 rounds 

The Granite State Poll is conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The results are based on telephone interviews of 581 New Hampshire adults with a margin of error of +/- 4.1%. The survey was conducted on January 30 - February 5, 2013 on landline and cellular telephones.

NEC Poll: NH voters want assault weapons banned

A New England College poll shows New Hampshire voters support an assault weapon ban by an overwhelming 72% to 24% margin.

In the survey from the school’s Center for Civic Engagement, Granite Staters expressed almost universal support for universal background checks, favoring that proposal by an even larger 88% to 10% margin.

“The numbers of voters in support of universal background checks are so high as to make demographic examination worthless,” noted Dr. Ben Tafoya, NEC Poll director. “It is difficult to imagine the voting public has a great consensus on anything than they show on this issue.”

The results are based on automated calls using landlines and cellphones to 656 registered voters with a +/- 3.8% margin of error. The survey was conducted on January 21-22, 2013.

NEC Poll: 66% favor tax increase on higher income

A survey from New England College finds Granite Staters favor a tax increase on upper income earners by a two to one margin. 66% of New Hampshire voters agree taxes should be raised on families with incomes over $250,000, with 54% agreeing strongly. Just 28% oppose the tax increase.

A plurality of voters support increasing the eligibility age for Medicare benefits by a 48% to 43% margin. Women oppose the change 46% to 42%, while men favor it 55% to 39%. 51% of Democrats oppose the increase compared to 39% who support it. Republicans favor raising the age by a 54% to 40% margin.

The results are based on automated calls to 658 registered voters with a +/- 3.8% margin of error. The survey was conducted on December 4-6, 2012.

Healthcare voters provided margin for Obama’s NH win

75% of New Hampshire voters in this year’s presidential election named the economy or the federal budget deficit as the most important issue facing the country. Exit polls indicate Mitt Romney won the majority of those voters by a wide 54% to 46% margin.

So how did President Obama win the state by almost six points? Health care! 18% of voters in the Granite State named health care as the most important problem facing the country. Obama won the votes from that group by a whopping 84% to 16% margin, providing the votes to overcome Romney’s advantage on the economy and the deficit.

2012 exit poll data: NH solidly pro-choice

72% of Granite State voters in this year’s presidential election said abortion should be legal in most or all cases. President Obama was the overwhelming choice of those voters, beating Mitt Romney by a 64% to 34% margin among those supporting legal abortions.

25% of New Hampshire voters said abortions should be illegal in most or all cases. Romney won 84% of the votes from that group compared to just 15% who supported Obama.

New Hampshire had the highest level of support for legal abortions among the 14 states surveyed on the question in national exit polling. New York and New Jersey were next with 71% support. Voters in Missouri and North Carolina expressed the least support for legal abortions with slight majorities, 53%, saying abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

Election postmortem: Grading NH pollsters

Polling newcomer New England College made a strong showing in its debut. The new polling unit in the college’s Center for Civic Engagement, led by Dr. Ben Tafoya, finished atop an evaluation of polling firms that surveyed the Granite State during this year’s presidential contest.

Ten pollsters conducted 19 surveys of the presidential race in New Hampshire during the last three weeks of the campaign. New England College, Public Policy Polling and UNH each surveyed the state three times during this period. American Research Group, Lake Research and Rasmussen each conducted two polls. Gravis Marketing, Grove, NBC/Marist and online pollster YouGov surveyed the state once.

Read More

Andy Smith: Polls are crap

During a post-election panel discussion last night in Durham, Andy Smith was asked about the volatility of his Granite State Polls this cycle. The director of the UNH Survey Center responded by pointing out the challenge of accurately identifying who will actually vote. As a result, he conceded, polls are not scientific.

The biggest problem with any election polling is not asking people who they’re going to vote for, it’s figuring out who’s going to show up. The motivation of deciding whether you’re going to vote or not changes pretty dramatically with the tone of the campaign…. So you see a great deal of variability….

The short answer is, polls are an incredibly volatile measure. We should not look at them as scientific measures of the public.

Not so fast, writes Sasha Issenberg. Yes, voter research indicates “we have good reason to be suspicious of peoples’ ability to predict their behavior.” But, he points out, pollsters who conduct internal surveys for candidates address this by developing statistical models to more accurately predict voter behavior.

Campaigns are much more trusting in their internal polling on previous vote history as a predictor. Campaigns come up with your individual propensity to vote in this election which assesses the likelihood that you will cast a ballot. The most influential variables in that algorithm are whether you voted in the past, and whether you seem like someone who votes frequently.

A huge gap has opened up between internal polls and public polls because the internal polls use these statistical models. The public polls use screens but most campaign polls now are able to make an a priori judgment of what they think the profile of the voter will be and just randomly dial people who are in that universe.

What that means is that I think that the difference in the public polls we’re seeing now is different assumptions in what the electorate will look like. In internal polls there’s a lot more stability, because they don’t simply ask in the moment what you do.

h/t: Paul Briand [video]

Nate Silver projects Obama to win NH by 3.7%

In his final update, Nate Silver projects President Obama to carry the Granite State with a 3.7% margin, slightly outside his model’s margin of error, which he translates to an 86% probability that the President will win New Hampshire.

Nationally, Silver gives Obama a 91.6% probability of winning the election, winning the popular vote by a 50.9% to 48.3% margin.

Marc Ambinder on Nate Silver:

When I refer to @fivethirtyeight as the liberal cognoscenti’s messiah, I’m making an observation I think Nate (who I love) would agree with. Your faith ought not be in Nate — it ought to be in the numbers. That’s Nate’s point. (I think). And his value is in explaining WHY.