Pew just released a new poll showing a dropoff in President Obama's approval. The New Republic's Nate Cohn crunched the numbers and found the decline concentrated in one subgroup in particular:
Today's Pew Research poll paints a clear picture of the Obama defectors. They're almost exclusively white voters without a college degree. Obama's standing among minorities, college educated whites, and affluent whites has actually improved since the final Pew Research poll before last November's presidential election. Instead, Obama's support among white working-class voters has taken a huge hit, opening an unprecedented 41 point education gap among white voters....Or maybe it is. The George Zimmerman verdict came down on July 13. The Pew poll was conducted July 17-21, when the verdict was being denounced as racist by many African-Americans and, well, many college-educated whites.
The source of the collapse isn't clear....
In fact, Pew's poll on the Zimmerman verdict -- which showed a big racial divide -- was conducted at exactly the same time, with exactly the same sample size. So I have to assume the two polls were one large poll.
I don't know what the order of the questions was, but it's generally recognized that early questions in a poll can influence answers on later questions. If bad feelings among non-college-educated white respondents were stirred up by Zimmerman questions, it seems possible that their answers regarding our first black president might turn a bit more negative.
So maybe this poll is just a snapshot of the post-verdict moment, not a sign of a larger trend.
News flash - Obama not popular with racist idiots.
ReplyDeleteCould be.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are right.
But I think the Zimmerman verdict was predictable and right, and was disappointed Obama could not bring himself to say so or even to see it that way.
And the endless attacks on Z and on whites occasioned by this affair also deeply offend me, especially coming from the likes of that racial thug and scumball, Reverend Al.
But I still prefer Obama to Hillary and if he could run a third time I would likely vote for him, again.
Come to that, I am likely happier with his actual policies than most of the people baying like dogs after Z's blood.
Perspective, please, Philo.
ReplyDeleteThe only person baying after blood in this affair was Zimmerman. Those of us who were properly horrified at the death of an innocent teenager, and the subsequent twisting of the narrative, only wanted a conviction for a criminal act.
Hardly blood.
Hardly surprising.
ReplyDeleteThe uneducated whites in this country don't need much cause to come to the conclusion that they don't like our minority President.
It could have been the result of Zimmerman trial, and what President Obama said, or it could have been that they were polled on a day of the week that ended in "day."
The jury found Z not guilty of any criminal act.
ReplyDeleteExactly as pretty much everyone expected, given the circumstances, from the day the Florida authorities let him go uncharged, to begin with.
All the same, I hope Steve M is right.