THAT POLL DOESN'T SAY WHAT MATT YGLESIAS THINKS IT SAYS

Telling Democrats that their ideas are crap seems more popular than Wordle these days among liberals with major media platforms. Today we have Matt Yglesias, in a post for Grid, telling liberals that nobody really likes what they advocate and that they're too stupid to realize this because they're doing polling all wrong.

In recent years, progressives have invested heavily in crafting a narrative which holds that all or almost all of their main policy ideas are overwhelmingly popular with the public.

Planned Parenthood routinely claims that “79% of Americans don’t want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said that “paid leave is overwhelmingly popular — even with Republicans.” And Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said “the American people want action, not never-ending ‘negotiations’ and obstructionism.” This is naturally an enticing line of thought for progressives — all their ideas are popular, and they are held back in life only by the timidity of the Democratic Party’s elected leaders.

But is it really true? After all, if Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of liberal policies, how are Republicans winning elections roughly half the time?

... it’s not that hard to generate favorable issue polls. In general, studies show that respondents have a bias toward answering yes to pretty much anything you ask them — a phenomenon known as acquiescence bias. Combine that with a favorable description of the proposal you have in mind, and it’s easy to create a poll showing your idea is popular.

Really? Any idea? Defunding the police? Reducing Social Security benefits?

... Americans don’t go into a voting booth and vote for or against issues. They vote for candidates. This makes a less-common approach to issue polling enlightening — rather than asking whether people favor this or that idea, pollsters sometimes ask respondents which party they prefer on a given issue. The results are more telling than a preference poll alone.

Grid ... asked several detailed issue questions. Then we asked about party preferences.... Some progressive ideas really do poll well. But so do some conservative ideas. And even in a polarized world, the public does have some clear preferences about which party they’d like to see put in charge of which issues — with both parties having clear areas of strength and weakness.

I don't know anyone who pays attention to polls who claims that all polls strictly on issues overwhelmingly favor Democrats, or that polls of party preference on issues do.

As it turns out, most of Grid's pure issue polls do favor Democratic positions, some by fairly big margins.

A few go the right's way:

Yglesias also adds that while support for legal abortion in the first trimester is strong, it drops dramatically when poll respondents are asked about the second and third trimesters. (He fails to note that, with a handful of exceptions, every national Republican supports a ban on abortion in all three trimesters.)

Yglesias's point appears to be that when you ask voters about party preferences on issues, the Democratic advantage essentially vanishes. Is that right? Let's take a look at the numbers:

Republicans aren't at 40% favorable on any issue; Democrats are above 40% on three of eight issues. The only issue on which Republicans have an advantage outside the +/-4% margin of error is government spending. Democrats have an advantage outside the margin of error on guns, abortion, climate change, and -- I hope you're sitting down for this one -- education. Yes, after every left-centrist pundit has spent the last three months telling us that America hates Democrats for (as the pundits see it) compulsively closing schools at the slightest sign of COVID and defending critical race theory to the death, it turns out the Dems have a ten-point advantage on the issue of education.

So the question remains: Why are our elections 50-50? The Democratic advantage on issues may not be massive, but it's clear, and it's clear whichever way you measure it. I'd argue that the explanation is that Republicans are much better at thumping their own chests and telling voters that they're the best (and Democrats are abhorrent); they're also much better at mobilizing their voters on issues even when those voters are in the minority (as they clearly are, for instance, on gun background checks). A Democratic president presided over a huge wave of job creation in 2021, but Democrats never seem to talk about that; Republicans saw potential Democratic weakness on education issues in 2021, and they talked about little else. Democrats may not have a massive issue advantage, but Republicans have a massive messaging advantage.