After Mark Sanford’s win, embarrassed pollsters go back to the drawing board | Harry J Enten

South Carolina’s special election made fools out of a few pollsters, but we’re better off with flawed data than none at all

Mark Sanford is heading off to Washington DC, while pollsters are heading back to their workshops. His victory by 9pt over Elizabeth Colbert Busch in South Carolina’s first district special election was surprisingly large. The last two public polls from Public Policy Polling (PPP) and Red Racing Horses (RRH) had Sanford winning by 1pt and a tie, respectively. PPP published a poll just two weeks before the election that had Colbert Busch winning by 9pt.

All three reports have joined the top 10 least accurate polls within two weeks of a special election, since 2004. PPP’s first poll was especially bad. It had an error of 18pt, which makes it the second least accurate poll taken two weeks before a special election since 2004. As my friend Mark Blumenthal points out, this first PPP survey had far too many African Americans as a percentage of the electorate. I don’t doubt that some white voters, a mostly Republican demographic in South Carolina’s first district, were disenchanted with Sanford by allegations that he violated the terms of his divorce, but the difference in the percentage of black voters was too great. Colbert Busch never had a lead of 9pt. One might wonder whether she even had a lead.

These errors might make people think twice about trusting PPP and RRH. After all, many major news organizations won’t cite PPP because it uses interactive voice response (IVR) technology instead of live interviewers, and because it doesn’t call cell phones. RRH doesn’t use live interviewers or call cells either, and it certainly doesn’t have a long track record; it’s apparently run by people who have no real background in polling. It wasn’t a surprise, therefore, that the RRH poll had women as too great a percentage of the electorate, at 60% versus the about 55% it should have been.

The truth, however, that PPP’s and RRH’s final polls seem to have been more accurate than the private (or internal) polls which are surveys produced by the parties and candidates. Most, though not all, use live interviewers and call mobile phones, and often, unreleased internal polls are more accurate than your average public poll. Most of the private polls for this race actually showed Colbert Busch holding a small lead.

All of this is to say that all the polling stunk it up in South Carolina’s first. Republican turnout wasn’t depressed as most thought it would be, and Republican voters did ultimately pull the lever for Sanford. Most of the undecided voters were Republicans, and there’s a reason PPP started to see that more white voters would vote than prior surveys indicated.

That’s why I will continue to pay attention to PPP and RRH in the future. Yes, PPP having Colbert Busch up nine was an embarrassment, but no one did better than PPP’s final or RRH’s only poll. The fact that even private pollsters fumbled so badly suggests that nobody who used better techniques could have been more accurate. Polling special elections just isn’t easy, as there really isn’t a baseline to understand who will turn out to vote and who will stay home.

Besides, the polling was useful, though imperfect. We knew that Sanford wouldn’t come close to replicating Mitt Romney’s 18pt win in the district, for instance. Even if the overall result was off, we learned some nuances of county polling, where the differences of support for each candidate were greater than expected. Thanks to RRH’s survey, we had a better idea on how counties would vote relative to each other, compared to the old method of just applying a uniform swing off the 2012 results. That doesn’t mean RRH is a great pollster, or even a particularly competent pollster, but it does suggest that almost any poll data can often be better than just going off the “fundamentals”.

It’s no surprise that you’re going to continue see websites like HuffPollster and Real Clear Politics report on surveys like PPP and RRH, which don’t meet the highest standards in the world. Polling data, even just okay data, can tell us a lot. In this case, the “flawed” public data was as good as the private data, and it was better than not looking at any polling at all.

Harry J Enten

Sanford v Colbert Busch: what are the odds for South Carolina’s first debate? | Harry J Enten

Debating a cardboard cutout has not helped the former governor against his opponent, and the polls show it

Republican Mark Sanford needs a breakthrough moment in tonight’s debate for South Carolina’s congressional special election, or else his comeback effort to win on 7 May is likely to fall short against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

Sanford hopes to return to public office as a congressman, after resigning his in the wake of an extramarital affair for which he resigned from the governor’s mansion and left his wife. After winning the Republican nomination for the special election in South Carolina’s first district, Sanford has faced a barrage of bad press suggesting that he can do no good, even including the news that he violated the terms of his divorce with his former wife.

His Democratic opponent, businesswoman Elizabeth Colbert Busch, has her own claim to fame. Her brother, Stephen Colbert, has hosted numerous fundraisers on behalf of his sibling, helping her stay on the air in a district that went for Mitt Romney by over 15pt. She has also received support from a number of outside organizations, like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, meanwhile, has abandoned Sanford. They refuse to air advertisements on his behalf, leaving the airways to his opponents. Sanford himself has little money left, and has been forced to rely on tactics such as a “debate” last week – with a cardboard cutout of Nancy Pelosi. He couldn’t afford podiums. Sanford used music stands instead. As a smart analyst told me, “It just feels like he’s going down.”

The one poll we have from the race shows Sanford trailing by 9pt, 50% to 41%. The poll, conducted last week by Public Policy Polling (PPP), shows an electorate that has Democrats as a greater proportion of the vote compared to PPP’s prior survey, which Colbert Busch led by 2pt. The new poll’s respondents voted for Romney over Obama by only a 5pt margin, compared to the 18pt margin Romney by which won the district last fall. PPP attributes this difference to low Republican enthusiasm, itself stemming from the most recent charges against Sanford.

Not everyone is buying PPP’s survey, though. Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman, for instance, thinks that Colbert Busch leads, but by a margin less than 9pt. My own math indicates that when you adjust PPP’s projected electorate to match its prior survey, Colbert Busch is ahead by a little over 3pt.

So just what are the chances that PPP’s poll is off by 9pt? Not very likely.

Over the past ten years, there have been 30 non-candidate/party sponsored polls conducted in the final two weeks before 18 off-cycle (i.e. not on election day during a midterm or presidential year) special congressional elections. Overall, these polls have been mostly accurate; 27 out of 30 times, the candidate leading in the poll won most of the votes in the special election. (Note: I only look at those elections where at least one Democrat and Republican are running. You can see the raw data here.)

Two of the three polls after in which the leading candidate didn’t win the election were for the 2009 New York 23rd special election, a unique race, in that there were three competitive candidates: Democrat Bill Owens, Republican Dede Scozzafava and Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. In the week prior to the election, the Republican candidate dropped out, remained on the ballot, and endorsed the Democrat.

Not surprisingly, the 23rd special had PPP’s largest absolute error; they predicted Conservative Hoffman to win by 17pt. He lost by 2pt to the Democrat.

In 26 of the 30 special election surveys, the polling error was less than 9pt – Colbert Busch’s lead. The polls’ average error was only 4pt, and the median even lower, at 3pt.

These margins leave little room for Sanford. He would need an error of at least 9pt, which has happened only 13% of the time. He would also need that error to be in his favor, which means he’s looking at a 7% likelihood. That’s not outside the realm of possibility, but it’s a long shot. My guess is internal polling shows the same results, which is why the Cook Political Report and Rothenberg Political Report have put their finger on the scale for Colbert Busch.

The best comparison to this scenario would be Louisiana’s sixth special election in 2008. Louisiana’s sixth was like South Carolina’s first in that a Republican represented the district for over 30 years, and both districts were over 15pt more Republican on the presidential level than the nation as a whole in the prior presidential election. Like Sanford, Republican Woody Jenkins had run for statewide multiple times. Jenkins also had his own ethics problems: a connection with former KKK wizard and Louisiana politician David Duke.

The final poll before the Louisiana sixth special had Democrat Don Cazayoux ahead by 9pt, just like the recent poll that shows Democrat Colbert Busch leading. Jenkins did better than his numbers suggested. He didn’t lose by 9pt, but he did lose – by 3pt. Even though the poll overestimated Jenkins’ deficit, Cazayoux’s lead was too great to overcome.

Like in Louisiana’s sixth, there is a decent chance that the upstart Democrat’s lead is less than 9pt. It’s quite possible Republican voters will come around to Sanford on election day.

The chance, however, that the PPP poll is so off that Mark Sanford defeats Elizabeth Colbert Busch? Less than 15%, unless something happens very quickly.

Harry J Enten

The Manchin-Toomey gun law defeat heralds trouble for Senate Democrats | Harry J Enten

Demographic shifts in the US, with Democratic support concentrated in big cities, are driving ever more partisan politics

On Wednesday, the United States Senate defeated the Manchin-Toomey proposal on background checks. The defeat was a setback for gun control advocates, though it should not have come as a surprise. The defeat with a manifestation of growing problem for Democrats: their coalition is bad for winning many seats in the Senate, so it’s bad for passing legislation, too.

Each state, regardless of size, gets two senators. The least populous state, Wyoming, at 576,000 residents, has two senators, as does the most populous state, California, at 38 million. These less populated states tend be mostly rural. The more populated states like California gain their population because of large cities.

The issue is that Democratic voters tend to congregate in larger cities. Per the 2012 exit polls, President Obama won cities with populations over 500,000 (or cities with populations about the size of all of Wyoming) by 40pt. They won cities with a population of between 50,000-500,000 by a still impressive 18pt. They lost the suburbs by 2pt, cities with populations between 10,000 and 50,000 by 14pt, and rural areas by an astounding 24pt.

Indeed, look at a key part of the Democratic coalition: Latinos. Forty-five percent of Latinos live in the ten largest metropolitan areas. Obama won 12 out of the 16 top states with the largest Latino population. Latinos have helped to solidify the Democratic hold on what was once the swing state of California with 38% of the state’s population – far greater than the national average of 16.3%. Forty-one states, however, have a Latino population at a lower proportion than the nation’s 16.3%; 33 have a population that is less than 10% Latino.

So, how did this manifest itself on the state level?

President Obama won a 7.3pt victory in 2008, yet only carried 28 states. Four years prior, President Bush won only a 2.5pt victory and carried 31 states. Eight years prior to that, in 1996, President Clinton won by 8.5pt and took 31 states. George HW Bush emerged victorious by 7.7pt and won 40 states. That’s right: GHW Bush’s national margin was about the same as Obama’s was 20 years later, but he took 12 more states.

Democrats have tended to win fewer states than Republicans given the same national vote victory, but it’s become worse. To win 30 states in the 2012 election, Obama would have needed to carry the national vote by about 9pt more than he did. He lost Arizona by 9pt, even as he won nationally by 3.9pt. It would have taken a true landslide for Obama to have won by 13pt nationally.

Twenty years ago, this concentration of Democratic strength might not have been too big of a deal, in terms of Senate representation. As I noted back in December, 49% of the Democrat’s 1993 senate caucus came from states that were more Republican the nation as a whole in the prior presidential election. Today, that percentage has been cut in half to only 25%.

When you combine the fact that Democratic presidential nominees are winning fewer states with the fact that there is more straight ticket-voting, the Democrats have a major problem on their hands. It’s simply going to get harder here on in to win a Senate majority, let alone a super-majority of 60 seats, which a party really needs to overcome the growing use of the filibuster.

The Democrats who are in “red” states recognize this fact and you saw it this week in the gun ownership background checks amendment vote. The four Democrats who bucked their party line were from states more Republican than the nation as a whole in the last presidential election. Three of the four are up for re-election in 2014. Of the red state Democrats running for re-election in 2014, three of five voted against the Manchin-Toomey compromise.

Just as bad for Democratic legislation is that there are no Republicans out there willing to compromise. Only 16% of the Republican Senate caucus comes from states where Obama won by a greater percentage than he won nationally. The percentage of blue state Republicans is also down by about half from the 28% it stood at after the 1992 elections. The Republicans who are elected now come from red states and just have no electoral need to compromise. If anything, they’re more fearful of a primary challenge from a stricter conservative.

Only one Republican from a red state, John McCain, voted for Manchin-Toomey. The other three were all from states that were more Democratic than the nation as a whole. The bill’s co-sponsor Pat Toomey, who is no liberal, likely benefitted from the politics of being on board with a bill that is popular in his home state of Pennsylvania.

None of this means that Democrats won’t get back to 60 seats, or can’t bring Republicans on board, in the future. It just means that it’s just much harder than it used to be and will get harder still. The current Democratic coalition is concentrated in a few states, which has resulted in fewer states being Democratic on the national level. Combine this with less split-ticket voting between presidential and congressional races, and it’s bad news for Democrats in getting proposals through the Senate.

The immediate result was the failure of Manchin-Toomey – an event that I expect to be repeated with much future Democratic legislation.

Harry J Enten

Republicans take note: Americans are embracing immigration reform | Harry J Enten

As with gay marriage, voter views on immigrants and immigration have ‘evolved’. The GOP can only lose by blocking reform

The electoral analysis of the immigration debate these days almost exclusively focuses on Latinos, which makes sense, but also misses the point. Not only do I personally think that most Latino voters won’t change their voting allegiance in response to any new immigration reform, but also let’s note that all Americans are shifting their views on immigration.

Back in 2010, politicians on both sides of the aisle were worried that they could be knocked out of office by people who wanted “build up a fence”. Immigration, for instance, was a major rallying cry for insurgent Tea Party activists. A New York Times report at the time noted:

“Enforcement would be more far-reaching than anything in place now – or anything proposed by the administration of President George W Bush.”

Now, however, Americans of all stripes have become increasingly progressive on almost all the issues around illegal immigration.

An overwhelmingly majority of Americans now believe that people who came to this country illegally should not be forced to leave it. In the latest CBS News poll, 74% of Americans – a record high – believe that undocumented immigrants should be allowed to apply for citizenship or stay as guest workers. That’s up from 57% in mid-2011. Per a Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey, there isn’t a single demographic group opposed to this proposal, and that includes Tea Partiers, Republicans and white people without a college degree.

More amazingly, more Americans now believe in a pathway to citizenship, rather than a guest worker program. CBS News found that a majority of Americans, 53%, are now in favor of letting citizens stay and apply for citizenship. That percentage is way up from 37% in 2011, while the percentage of Americans who support a guest worker program has stayed steady, at about 20%.

While Americans are pretty evenly split on offering outright citizenship to undocumented immigrants, they see young people differently. Well over 60% of Americans, and as many as 74% in a CBS News survey, are in favor of a pathway to citizenship for children who came here under the age of 30 – so long as they meet certain conditions. In the CBS News survey, this includes 60% of Republicans. This support is emphatically up from 2010, when only 54% of Americans would vote for a similar policy, per Gallup.

Perhaps more important than any one immigration policy is the motive behind the policy. A slim majority of Americans now believes that an immigration plan should focus on providing legal residency to people here, rather than on stopping the flow of immigrants into the country. Per CNN/ORC, the generational divide is wide. Over 60% of those under 50 put priority on integration, while those 50 and older are far more evenly split. Majorities of Democrats, independents and white people prioritize residency.

Since May 2010, there has been a 15pt increase in the percentage of Americans who want to concentrate on how best to let undocumented immigrants stay. The percentage of those who want to increase attention on policing the border has dropped from 60% to only 43%.

Indeed, the attitude towards immigrants themselves has changed tremendously over the past few years. Today, 49% of Americans believe that the hard work of immigrants strengthens the country, and only 41% believe they are a burden, according to Pew. In 2006, the margin was reversed with 52% saying immigrants were a burden and 41% disagreeing. We should only expect the margin to rise in the future, as 59% of 18-29 year-olds say immigrants strengthen society, while only 37% of people 65 and older agree.

So what does this all mean for the immigration debate going forward?

Whatever policy the GOP espouses, immigration, in and of itself, isn’t likely to cost Republicans many votes. The issue ranks very low for most voters, and most Latino voters are Democratic for other reasons.

The real problem for the Republican party is that its brand is currently in the can. With favorable numbers in the low 30s, the GOP is seen as out-of-step with Americans on many issues.

That’s why you’re seeing Democrats jumping out to a large lead on the House ballot for 2014. The latest Quinnipiac poll puts Democrats up by 8pt, more than enough for them to take back the House. Voters are, at this point, not willing to vote for the party that opposes what they believe in. What Republicans don’t need, then, is another issue – that is, immigration – that contributes to notion that they’re out-of-touch with the way most Americans feel.

Opposing immigration reform would be yet another instance of GOP “obstructionism”, which is what most people see as the Republicans’ biggest fault. Unlike certain issues on which Americans agree with Democratic positions but trust Republicans to handle better – gun control, for example – voters are connecting immigration position with political party. More voters trust the Democrats on immigration; voters trust Obama over congressional Republicans on immigration reform by a 17pt margin.

Whether or not voters will still think Republicans clueless in the run-up to the midterm elections is another question. Right now, though, we can only say that progressive immigration reform has become popular – and opposing change won’t help Republicans at all.

Harry J Enten

Why the bully pulpit is Obama’s only hope for gun control | Harry J Enten

With public will waning, the president’s paradox is that making gun control his issue is divisive but nothing gets done otherwise

President Obama tried to breathe new life into his stalled gun control agenda on Thursday, but will he have any impact? He may not have a choice: it looks like some kind of action on his part is the only hope for reform.

Over the past few weeks, the percentage of Americans favoring new gun control regulations have dropped across the board. Fox News polling saw support for background checks with new gun purchases fall by 6pt, to 85%; mental health checks by 11pt, to 72%; new ammunition limits by 10pt, to 70%; high-capacity magazines bans by 2pt, to 54%; armed guards in schools by 9pt, to 51%; and assault weapons bans by 3pt, to 51%.

The good news for those favoring tighter gun control is that most of the specific proposals still have majority support. Background checks, the center of the White House’s gun control package, still have 85%, per Fox News; and 90%, per CBS News. Even the long-doomed ban on assault weapons is at 51% and 49%, per Fox and CBS, respectively.

Of course, the issue has always been that any gun control package presented by the president would ultimately become polarized along party lines. That is, people may support specific measures in theory, but they’ll disagree as soon as it becomes “President Obama’s gun control plan”.

We haven’t had any polls attach Obama’s name to gun control questions in the past few weeks. We have had broader gun control questions, though, that generally matched Obama’s past proposals. I also feel these broader questions do a better job measuring the public will on gun control legislation.

The drops in support for strong, broad gun control measures have been dramatic. CBS found the percentage of Americans who want stricter regulations fell from 57%, immediately following Newtown, to 47% now. And 50% of Americans saw no need for stricter regulations, or preferred, in fact, loosening gun restrictions.

Only 43% of Americans said that they wanted to put major restrictions on gun ownership or make them illegal, in the latest CNN/ORC poll. That’s down from 52% post Newtown. Meanwhile, the percentage who wants only minor or no restrictions is at 55% – the highest percentage ever measured by CNN/ORC.

What happened here?

Part of it, no doubt, is that President Obama’s overall popularity has dropped off in recent weeks. I noted previously that his overall approval was highly correlated with support for his gun control package. That’s why you see red state Democrats hesitant to get behind background checks, even as they poll at astronomical levels.

The other cause is that gun control has left the news. As I spoke about previously, the spike in support for tighter gun control after Newtown was reminiscent of trends after the Columbine massacre. These two gun tragedies were unlike others, such as the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting, because they became remained top news stories or some time, and were thus able to enter the public consciousness.

Eventually, however, Columbine received less and less news coverage, and the polling bump faded. We can check for the same pattern with the Newtown shootings by searching the News Library archive, which tracks newspapers and television transcripts.

In the month following the Newtown tragedy, the phrase “gun control” was mentioned 23,484 times. In the second month, it actually climbed slightly to 23,506. During March, through Wednesday, the number dropped to only 9,238. Now, that’s still much higher than the 1,243 mentions in the month prior to Newtown, but you don’t have to be a statistician to see the downward trajectory.

The president can help gun control reenter the news, and thus the minds of Americans. Danny Hayes found that in the week following the president’s initial announcement of his plans, the press mentioned gun control twice as much as previously. During that same period, the percentage of Americans who wanted tighter gun control barely strayed from the post-Newtown high.

One might expect that a similar news spike and rebounding of support for stricter gun control can happen, given President Obama’s new push.

This not to say that the president can convince the American public of something that they don’t believe. What he can do, according to research by Brandice Canes-Wrone on budget issues, is take stalled, popular proposals, and create a campaign issue out of them, thus convincing Congress to act. Background checks are, as Mark Blumenthal pointed out, the perfect example of a policy that is massively popular – and going nowhere in Congress.

We already see Democratic donors and grassroots organizations following Obama’s lead, and trying to turn background checks into a campaign issue. As reported by Greg Sargent, top Democratic donor Kenneth Lerer won’t give money to Democrats who don’t back gun control. The Daily Kos’ Markos Moulitsas followed up this report by hoping:

“It is a start of a trend. Too many big liberal voters have given to the party and candidates uncritically in the past.”

Of course, this could all easily fail. The president could simply polarize the debate even more. This campaign may make red state Democrats even more squeamish, and will almost certainly make the Republican-controlled House even less likely to move towards more regulation.

But right now, the issue is already polarized. Gun control has gone nowhere in Congress, while the president was saying little. Nationally, public will on the issue is fading. The situation for gun control advocates could hardly be worse, in fact.

The flipside, though, is that by speaking, Obama can engage and activate a public that is still firmly in favor of background checks. He just might be able to change the dynamic and make politicians recognize that, politically, they are on the wrong side of the issue. Thursday’s speech was a start, but it’s all uphill from here on.

Harry J Enten

Bill and Claire’s Unconstitutional Adventure

“No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.”

-The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1992)

Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced a bill today that would force members of Congress to take pay cuts equal to the cuts affecting other government agencies under sequestration. This proposal is likely to be hugely popular with the American people. What’s the problem with this plan? It’s clearly unconstitutional, as well as simply being a bad idea.

The 27^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (posted above) makes it unconstitutional for congressional pay to be changed until an election has taken place. While ratified in 1992, this amendment was originally proposed as part of the Bill of Rights and was supported by James Madison.

Madison supported this amendment because he did not want members to vote themselves a huge pay raise before the voters were allowed a chance to register their approval or disapproval of Congress. To quote Madison, “there is a seeming impropriety in leaving any set of men without control to put their hand into the public coffers, to take out money to put in their pockets.”

This amendment also protects members of Congress who express minority opinions on legislation or nominations. Imagine this scenario: The majority in Congress wants to pass a bill that it has the votes for, but it wants to look bipartisan in passing the bill. The speaker goes to the minority leader and says, “Have your members vote yes on my bill or we will vote to cut the pay of minority party members by half.” Seem implausible? Maybe, but the 27^th Amendment is an important protection against the tyranny of the majority.

In addition to being unconstitutional, cutting the pay of members of Congress is a misplaced (albeit popular) reform. While the $174,000 salary that members of Congress receive is certainly a decent salary, it is not excessive if one considers the other potential job options for members of Congress. Who can forget the million dollars that former-Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has been offered to run the Heritage Foundation? Dozens of other examples exist of members getting huge pay raises to work as lobbyists or other positions in the private sector after leaving Congress.

As the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” If you offer second rate pay to members of Congress, you will get second rate members. (Yes, even worse than now!) In other words, there needs to be a competitive salary for members of Congress in order to maximize the probability of attracting high quality individuals to the job.

Furthermore, if the pay of members of Congress is cut too much, then serving in Congress will become even more difficult for middle and lower income Americans than it is now. Members of Congress have to maintain two residences and must have an extensive professional wardrobe (among other living expenses beyond that of the average American). This isn’t a problem if you are one of the 50 richest members of Congress, but if you are a clean energy expert/advocate, high school teacher, or farmer/gospel music singer then a drastic pay cut might make it financially difficult to serve in Congress. At the very least, such an individual would be unable to build a financial nest egg in case of an election loss, which would disincentivize them from running in the first place.

All in all, a substantial pay cut for members of Congress would serve to make the membership of Congress even less economically representative of the country as a whole than it is now. While some people might be willing to take significant financial sacrifices to serve in Congress, enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

In conclusion, even if you don’t agree that Mr. Nelson and Ms. McCaskill’s proposal is a bad idea, it is clear that it is unconstitutional. And when laws are legitimately unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has a way of striking that whole thing down.

[Note: The title of the article is a pun on the movie“Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” The final line of this piece is a (hopefully satirical) reference to Rep. Todd Akin’s disastrous comments about “legitimate rape” in the 2012 election.]

Americans want gun control, but not badly enough | Harry J Enten

Gun rights advocates know that, despite Newtown, the US public is only lukewarm about gun laws – and is cooling all the time

After a month of reported congressional movement on gun control, negotiations have apparently hit a snag. Democratic senators have decided to break up proposals into different packages – such as Senator Dianne Feinstein’s push for an assault weapons ban – instead of presenting one “Obama gun package”. And, unsurprisingly, Republicans and Democrats can’t seem to agree on what parts should make up a background check bill.

On the surface, this seems like Washington dysfunction at its worst, especially since the percentage of Americans who want tougher gun control has stayed at its post-Newtown high: a majority still wants a ban on assault weapons, although legislation on that has pretty nearly no chance of passing through Congress. Over 80% of Americans do agree on universal background checks, including a majority of Republicans.

But a deeper look at the numbers suggests that gun rights advocates may be playing a stronger hand than at first glance.

1. Most Americans don’t see gun control as the most significant way to prevent mass shootings

Per a Public Religion Research Institute poll, only 25% of Americans believe that stricter gun control laws and enforcement would be the key to preventing massacres. That was second to mental health screenings, at 30%, and just ahead of moral and religious teaching, at 20%.

Even when we expand the issue out to allow for multiple answers, as CBS News did, only 21% think that stricter gun control would prevent gun violence by much. Almost half, 46%, think mental health screening would help a lot, while 36% think armed guards in public places would be most useful.

2. Guns as a whole are not at the forefront of issues for most Americans

Only 4% of Americans listed guns as the most important problem facing the country in the latest CBS News poll. Instead, over 50% chose the economy, jobs or the budget deficit. That matches other recent polling, and the recent focus on the sequestration illustrates this data.

You might say, “Of course, the economy is the No 1 issue for Americans – how could gun control come close?” And I’d agree: if gun control were really at the top of the heap, I’d expect it to be polling higher. During the healthcare debate of 2009-10, for instance, healthcare regularly broke the 20% barrier in polls on the most important issue in the US.

Now, it’s possible for Americans to care about more than one issue at once, but it’s fairly clear that gun control can get lost in our current mess of unemployment, budget cuts, and a stalling legislature. But gun control tends to be tied with healthcare and immigration as the most important issue, at all of 5%. Right now, healthcare isn’t even a national issue so much as a state one, in parts of the country.

3. Most Americans don’t feel gun legislation needs to be passed this year

This doesn’t come as a shocker given my last point, yet gun rights advocates have to like this number: only 46% of Americans in the latest Pew Research poll believe it is essential to pass gun legislation this year. That number includes only 42% of independents, and in fact, only 71% of Democrats who think that gun safety legislation is essential this year.

This is a key point because Republicans might fear being seen, once again, as “too rigid” and the “party of no”, as many Americans feel they are. But they can rest a little easier when it comes to guns. The American public seems to be saying that there’s nothing wrong with a delay.

4. Public opinion on gun control will eventually run out

If new gun laws aren’t passed this year, then they likely won’t be passed at all. Past history indicates that the current tide of opinion in favor of gun control will ebb over the course of the year. After Columbine, the only event in recent history with a comparable increase in favor of gun control, the high-water mark dropped after a year.

The reasons are twofold. First, the movement in favor of gun control has been driven mostly by media coverage. The media has yet to abandon stories about gun control, but time and a business imperative will eventually take their toll. Newer and more compelling news stories will fill the headlines, and most people will follow where the news coverage leads.

Second, the general movement over the past two decades has been against greater gun control. Take a look at the image above and take away the Sandy Hook spike. Prior to the Newtown shooting, the percentage of Americans in favor of stricter gun control had dropped below 50% – the first time that had ever happened.

Thus, from a game theory standpoint, I’m not exactly sure congressional members who want minimal gun control should rush into any deal. They have the numbers to stop any gun control measures in the Senate by filibuster, and they have a majority in the House. As importantly, if they look at the polling, they’ll know that they won’t face much of a penalty from the public: America isn’t exactly clamoring for tighter gun control and believes that other steps would do more to curb gun violence.

This is not to say a bill on background checks won’t pass through Congress. It’s just that the current hold-up should surprise no one; and despite the weight of current opinion, the pressure to make a law on guns probably won’t increase.

Harry J Enten

Marco Rubio for 2016? Five reasons I wouldn’t bet on it | Harry J Enten

Recent prominence on the national stage leads some to tout Rubio as the Republican party’s possible saviour. I doubt it

Every once in a while, there is a political leader who comes along as a saviour for his or her party. Names like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan are examples of politicians who marked the beginning of new political eras. Many have pointed to Marco Rubio as one who may follow in these men’s footsteps – and lead his party to victory in the 2016 presidential election.

Rubio is said by some to be the candidate who could reverse the Republicans’ very poor electoral showing with the growing proportion of the electorate that is Latino. He has emerged as the leading GOP figure among the “gang of eight” senators proposing bipartisan reform of the nation’s immigration law – as a Tea Party favorite, he has even made strides in winning round opinion among strongly conservative talk radio audiences on this policy. And finally, he has been anointed to deliver the Republican party’s response to President Obama’s state of the union address on Tuesday night: the gift of a national stage to a rising star.

But at this point, I just don’t see the 2016 saviour scenario happening for the senator from Florida. Why not?

1. Republicans like to choose the next in line

Since 1960, it’s been fairly easy to predict who would be the Republican nominee. Every candidate except for Barry Goldwater has either run for national office previously or been the son of someone who has. Mitt Romney ran in 2008, before winning the nomination in 2012. John McCain took on George W Bush in 2000, before clinching the nomination in 2008. Bob Dole ran as a vice-presidential nominee in 1976 and a presidential candidate in 1980 and 1988, until he finally broke through in 1996. The list goes on and on.

The best example is Ronald Reagan. He was someone who supposedly took on the Republican old guard, who thought he was too conservative and distrusted his “voodoo economics”. The fact is that Reagan had actually first run in 1968 as a conservative outsider and lost. He was more successful in his challenge to Gerald Ford in 1976, but still came up short. It wasn’t until he was well-established and entered 1980 as a front-runner that he took the nomination.

Marco Rubio has never run for president, nor appeared on a national ticket. That’s not to say this rule is ironclad, by any means, but Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and most importantly, Paul Ryan are all in better position per this criterion.

2. Republicans choose the candidate backed by the establishment

One could argue that rule 1 is a manifestation of rule 2, but the fact is that Democrats and Republicans tend to pick the candidate with establishment support. That’s the thesis of the book The Party Decides. The idea is that the candidate who has the most party backing almost always wins.

Thus George W Bush in 2000, who had never run for national office before, won lots of endorsements from the party bigwigs. And we saw how elected officials carried Romney to victory by coming out and bashing Newt Gingrich in 2012, at the moment when he threatened Romney’s lead in the primaries.

Marco Rubio is, at this point, almost the antithesis of the Republican establishment. He won his Senate seat in 2010 by challenging the party pick Charlie Crist. Once in Washington, Rubio has continued his anti-establishment ways. His second-dimension “DW-Nominate” score, which has been a pretty good measurer of establishment activity, is negative. From the debt ceiling to the fiscal cliff, Rubio has consistently voted against legislation that the leadership voted for.

3. Rubio is likely too conservative

People may be being fooled, currently, into thinking that Rubio is a middle-of-the-road politician. After all, he’s from the swing state of Florida and is sponsoring immigration reform. Rubio was, in fact, the seventh most conservative senator in the 112th Congress. His voting record puts him sandwiched between arch-conservatives Jim Inhofe and Ron Johnson.

Very conservative nominees can win a party’s nomination, as did Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. The issue for Rubio, though, is that these folks became nominees when the party had just recently been in the White House. When the party has been out for two terms or more, the nominees tend to be a lot more moderate – because the party wants to win and wants a centrist pick. The most conservative nominee after the party had been out of office for more than two terms was George W Bush, the “compassionate conservative” who, at the time, was not seen nearly as rightwing as he later was.

Rubio running from the right doesn’t make too much sense, especially considering that, these days, somewhat conservative and moderate voters hold a 2:1 advantage over very conservative voters in Republican presidential primaries.

4. Rubio is largely an unknown

How much do we really know about Marco Rubio, and how he’d perform on the big stage? I mean, besides making a Time Magazine cover story, Rubio is quite untested. With relatively little media scrutiny, he had to fight through a credit card expenses scandal (an Ethics Commission ultimately threw out the case); he has also been exposed as having embellished his family history about his parents’ flight from Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

The fact is that we are almost always surprised by what candidates look like once they are under the spotlight. We found out that Rick Perry couldn’t debate to save his life. Newt Gingrich’s outsider status was severely compromised by his lobbying activity when he was out of office. Gary Hart had, in fact, been involved in a sexual affair.

If past experience holds, there are bound to be more awkward questions for Rubio than he has hitherto faced.

5. A Rubio run would face a competitive GOP field

This one is, perhaps, the most obvious: there are potentially a lot of very plausible Republican nominees. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, and Paul Ryan are all not so far-fetched names for a run in 2016. Half of these candidates are more impressive than the Republicans that ran in 2012. Even if Rubio leads a very, very early field, the other candidates combined total 80%. The probability of one of these other hypothetical candidates winning is far greater than Rubio’s chance of taking the pie.

Conclusion

If Rubio takes the plunge for 2016, I would bet against him. Given the hurdles a Rubio candidacy would face, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he never runs at all.

Harry J Enten

How the fate of gun control is tied to presidential popularity | Harry J Enten

Polling shows that Obama’s approval rating is closely correlated with opinion on gun control. That suggests trouble ahead

Want to know how people feel about President Obama’s gun control plan?

Simply ask whether they approve or disapprove of how the president and his administration are doing their job. The two questions are nearly perfectly linked, and that could have major consequences for the future of gun control legislation.

The latest ABC/Washington Post polls prove the strong relationship. Many individual gun proposals are highly popular. In fact, seven tested gun measures, including background checks and bans on assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns, have majority support ranging from 51% to 88%.

When you attach Obama’s name by calling it “Barack Obama’s proposals”, the Post discovered that 53% of Americans favor the proposals – nearly identical to Obama’s approval rating of 55% in a separate Post poll last week. Gallup found the same, with 53% in favor of Obama’s gun control plan, compared to his monthly approval rating of 52%.

Drill down to specific demographics and the link between approval of the gun plan and approval of Obama’s administration becomes even clearer. Neither the Post nor Gallup asked about the plan or Obama’s approval in the same poll. The Post did, however, enquire about Joe Biden’s favorability. Biden’s net favorable of +11 percentage points is very close to Obama’s net approval rating of +14pt from the prior poll, meaning that the two are closely correlated.

[Note: we test Biden because we are examining small sub-samples and the sampling error on margins (for example, for favorable minus unfavorable) of less than 350 people is about 10pt or greater, which makes comparing different poll sub-samples difficult. By restricting ourselves to the same sample of people, as we can with Biden's favorables and the gun package, we can compare the answers among the exact same group of respondents.]

Among the 24 subgroups tested, the correlation between a subgroup’s opinion towards Joe Biden and Obama’s gun plan is 0.98 – nearly perfect. Moreoever, 95% of the differences in subgroup net favorables on Obama’s gun plan are predicted by their respective opinions of Biden. You rarely see two variables this closely linked. That’s even higher than the strong explanatory power that evangelical voting had in forecasting the Republican primary.

The median difference between a group’s opinion towards Biden versus Obama’s gun package is 2pt, which matches the 1pt difference between favorability for Biden and Obama’s gun control package overall. That’s ridiculously small. It means that if a respondent liked Biden, who substitutes for the administration, then the person liked the gun plan. Among independent voters, Biden’s net favorable is +5pt, and the net favorable impression of Obama’s plan is +7pt. Republican responders register -51pt net favorables for both. Among region, the median difference is only 3pt. Biden, for example, had a net favorable of +12pt in the south, while Obama’s gun plan had a favorable of +10pt. In the battleground of the midwest, Biden stood at +4pt and Obama’s gun plan was at +5pt net favorable.

So much for the correlation, but what does it mean for the future of gun control legislation?

In short, it means the gun control debate is likely heading in the direction of healthcare. In that political fight, as with this one, individual proposals polled well, but attaching Obama’s name to a proposal polarized opinion.

The key difference this time is that the net approval for Obama and his administration is about 14pt higher than it was when the healthcare bill passed in March 2010. That’s at least part of the reason why Obama’s gun safety proposals are polling much higher than his healthcare reform bill did three years ago.

This is also the main explanation for why President Obama’s gun plan is doing fairly well among independents and southerners. Obama lost both groups in the 2012 election, yet his post-election bounce has temporarily endeared him to them.

The chances are that he can’t maintain this surge in popularity, as most second-term bounces don’t last as long as the first-term ones. Obama will likely maintain a positive net approval overall, but not among certain subgroups. If his subgroup approval eventually matches his election margins, then he’ll start to show negative numbers among independents and southerners.

The question, then, is whether the high correlation between support for Obama’s administration and its gun policy signals that support for gun control is also poised to drop. It makes sense that it would. I’d also anticipate that this drop will be among the same subgroups as for Obama’s overall approval. That’ll mean that the current support for the gun plan among independents and southerners goes up in smoke.

Many House representatives up for re-election in 2014 are likely aware of the relationship between Obama’s gun proposals and his approval. Right now, that’s not an issue, but a fall in Obama’s approval would make this high correlation a problem. I don’t believe that legislators from areas where Obama’s approval is negative would want to be associated with a bill whose popularity is tied directly to presidential ratings. I’m talking about senators from red states who are committed to opposition, or waffling, on gun control – like Max Baucus, Mark Begich, Tim Johnson, Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, and, to a lesser extent, Kay Hagan.

So, we shouldn’t be surprised by a decline in support for Obama’s gun control package, nor by more obfuscation from vulnerable Democrats, who want to tread very carefully on guns. This doesn’t mean any gun package is over before it’s begun. Universal background checks, which are supported by about 90% of the public, seem to be picking up some steam.

But gun control legislation, on the whole, will be difficult to pass – and not just on the face of the proposals, but because red state legislators facing re-election simply won’t want to be associated a bill so closely tied to the popularity of President Obama.

Harry J Enten

How Senate Democrats, not just House Republicans, will block gun control | Harry J Enten

A filibuster-proof majority in Senate is already a stretch, but red state Democrats up for re-election may make it unreachable

Vice-President Biden’s group will make recommendations to President Obama this week on gun control. Majorities of Americans support numerous new gun restrictions, yet I’m pessimistic that anything will get through Congress. Why?

You might expect me to cite the Republican-controlled House, but the chances that the Democratic-controlled Senate will pass anything are not much better.

The Democrats need 60 votes to achieve “cloture” or avoid a filibuster, and that seems near-impossible. Assuming all 55 Democrats vote for a piece of gun control legislation, another five Republicans must join the coalition. I can only think of four Republicans who are gettable.

Mark Kirk, from blue state Illinois, has a lifetime F-rating from the NRA and has voiced support for an assault weapons ban. Susan Collins, from Obama-voting Maine, and Dan Coats of Indiana have each received a C+ from the NRA, and worse grades from the Gun Owners of America. Finally, John McCain of Arizona only has a B+ from the NRA and a C- from the Gun Owners.

These four Republicans, plus all the Democrats, equal only 59, which, of course, isn’t 60. Every other Republican has at least an A from either the NRA or the Gun Owners. There would have to be a major change of heart from at least one Republican in order to avoid a filibuster or make cloture.

But even if you got that magical one Republican, the openness to discuss gun control from West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, isn’t likely to be shared by six red state Democrats who are set to run for re-election in 2014.

The reason is that regardless of how Americans view gun control right now, research indicates that they are likely to be at least somewhat affected by cues from their party leaders. This is especially the case if the party is out of power, as the Republicans currently are. You saw this during healthcare reform debate of 2009 when most Americans were in favor of Obamacare at first, then turned against it once it became a partisan issue and Republican leaders resisted the reforms. Americans then opposed the new law even as they still supported most of the policies contained within it. A similar outcome is possible this time, as Republicans leaders have not indicated much of any movement on gun control.

Pew Research found that Americans who prioritize gun rights over gun control, as well as gun owners, are more likely to say that the Republican party does a better job of reflecting their views on gun control, by margins of 44 percentage points and 22pt, respectively. Americans against gun control are more likely to be politically active than their pro-control counterparts: they are 17pt more likely to to contribute money, contact a public official, sign a petition, or express an opinion on a social network. I can’t imagine a senator from a red state, especially one in which there are more guns per household than the national average, wanting to go up against a barrage from pro-gun forces.

That’s why Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, and Tim Johnson of South Dakota all have A ratings from the NRA. They all come from states ranked third or fourth in gun ownership – at least 57% of households have a gun in the home. Baucus voted against a renewal of the assault weapons ban in 2004; Begich said he’d vote against it even after Newtown; and Johnson has seen his NRA grade go from a C+ in 2003 to an A, with an NRA endorsement, during his 2008 re-election fight.

The electoral prospects for each man adds to the unlikelihood that any will cast a vote in favor of serious gun control legislation. According to Public Policy Polling (PPP), Baucus has a net approval rating of -3pt and leads a generic Republican candidate by only 3pt. Begich won election 2008 by only 1pt and is rated as “vulnerable” by the Cook Political Report, which also pegs Johnson as the incumbent most likely to lose in 2014.

Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, too, is likely a goner on serious gun control legislation, despite a C from the NRA. She voted against renewing the assault weapons ban in 2004, and pretty much every other gun control measure of the past eight years. She won re-election in 2008 by six points – against a relatively weak opponent and in a state that voted for Romney by 17pt. She is “at risk” per the Cook Political Report. In Louisiana, 44% of households have a gun, 14th most in the nation.

Only Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas could go in favor of gun control. Hagan has an F from NRA, though she voted in favor in loosening regulations across state lines and calls herself a strong supporter of the second amendment. Pryor has a C-. He also voted to renew the assault weapons ban in 2004, and has wavered only occasionally since.

Again, the issue is that the Cook Political Report puts both of them at risk, come election season. Hagan’s net approval rating of -2 per PPP means she can’t afford to lose many voters, even if her state ranks only 23rd in the nation for households with guns, at 41%.

Pryor might be in an even worse spot. In 2012, Obama lost Arkansas by 24pt, and Democrats lost their control of the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Democrats had three of the state’s four representatives in Congress during Pryor’s last election, but don’t have a single one now. He simply doesn’t need enemies in a state where 55% of households have a gun – sixth most in the nation.

So, I don’t think you can count on any red state Senate Democrat who is running in 2014. Taking away these six leaves the pro-control caucus with 53 votes in the Senate, at most – even with the four Republicans. Counting Hagan and Pryor only leaves the pro-control caucus with 55 votes.

Let’s also be real here. Joe Manchin has only said that “everything should be on the table”. He hasn’t actually committed to anything concrete. Neither have Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, nor Jon Tester of Montana – all red state Democratic senators given A-ratings by the NRA – committed to anything specific.

That’s why the smart analysis says that the chances of Congress passing serious gun control legislation decrease by the day. The House is a foregone conclusion. When all these numbers start getting added together, I’m not even sure you can find a simple majority of senators to agree on tougher gun control. A filibuster-proof majority, meanwhile, is likely impossible.

Harry J Enten

Margin of Σrror

Category Archives: US Congress

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Americans want gun control, but not badly enough | Harry J Enten

Marco Rubio for 2016? Five reasons I wouldn’t bet on it | Harry J Enten

How the fate of gun control is tied to presidential popularity | Harry J Enten

How Senate Democrats, not just House Republicans, will block gun control | Harry J Enten