Margin of Σrror

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Category Archives: Gay Rights

Same-sex marriage and the south | Harry J Enten

Without a further supreme court ruling or federal intervention, Republican state legislatures will block gay marriage for decades

America loves to talk about its democracy – except for when we don’t like its outcomes. The overturning of California’s Proposition 8 is a perfect example.

Five years ago, the people of California went to the polls and decided to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage via a ballot initiative known as Prop 8. This was after a California supreme court ruling that a previously voted-upon statute (Proposition 22) was unconstitutional under state law. People upset with Prop 8 then decided to sue to overturn it. The state government refused to defend it after it was overturned in federal district court. Eventually, the district court’s decision that Prop 8 was not in compliance with the US constitution became the law that went into effect.

Gay marriage, arguably, should never have been voted upon in the way that it was, but it must nevertheless be acknowledged that the court’s decision overturned “the will of the people”. In effect, what happened was that we said “the people can vote on it, and if we don’t like the outcome, then screw the result”. This point was made in part by Seth Masket last week, and it is one that will define the gay marriage debate going forward.

The US supreme court has, for now, left it up to states to determine whether or not marriage should be legal. While legalising gay marriage is becoming the majority opinion across the US, state polling indicates that marriage equality is far from becoming the law in every state. Surveys conducted over the past few years in a number of southern states have found that these states were not only less likely to support gay marriage than the rest of the country, but their rate of change was slower as well.

A number of southern states, from Alabama to West Virginia, could be waiting multiple decades until a majority of residents is willing to support same-sex marriage. I’d expect most, if not all, of the south to be in favor by 2030-2040. Before this point, however, any legalization of same-sex marriage in these states is going to have to come from federal intervention. Almost certainly, that will need to come from another supreme court decision dictating that marriage equality must become the law of the land nationwide. That decision, if and when it comes, will arrive despite “the will of the people” in much of the south.

But the situation is more complicated still. All the southern states except for West Virginia have in place a constitutional ban against same-sex marriage. All the southern states – except for Arkansas and Mississippi, where support for gay marriage is somewhere between 20% and 30% – require state legislative action before overturning a state constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

The fact that state legislatures will be required to act changes the entire equation for the south. All the southern legislatures with a constitutional ban against gay marriage also feature Republican control of at least one house of the state legislature. In most cases, Republicans control both houses with plenty of room to spare and no sign that control is going to switch anytime soon. All of the states that require going to the legislature demand super-majorities (60%+) and/or at least two consecutively elected legislatures to approve an amendment for it to reach the popular ballot.

What this basically means is the same-sex marriage debate is not even about what the majority of the people thinks in most of these states. Republican legislators control the action. That’s the whole game.

Throughout most of the south, Republican support for gay marriage is in the low teens. That has little changed in the past decade. Even if the rate of Republicans favoring gay marriage picked up by 1pt per year, it would still take until at least 2050 in most of the south before a pro-gay marriage position became the norm among Republican voters. That creates a huge difference between 2030 (or 2020, in the case of Virginia) as the likely date when a majority of southerners will approve of gay marriage and 2050 (or later) when a majority of Republicans in those states approve of it.

So, we’re probably faced with a same-sex marriage debate that will be decided and closed without people in the south having their voices heard. These are the two scenarios: either the supreme court will rule it legal in every southern state; or Republicans in those legislatures are going to hold it up long past the point that most people in these states accept it as the law of the land.

Until the point when polling in southern states shows a majority in favor, I’m sure those against it will claim to represent the popular will to support their position. At the point the polls turn in the other direction, those against same-sex marriage will quietly drop any mention of “the will of the people”. Even so, Republicans in state legislatures will be able to hold up legal change probably for years, despite being charged as “obstructionist”.

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Same-sex marriage and the south | Harry J Enten

Without a further supreme court ruling or federal intervention, Republican state legislatures will block gay marriage for decades

America loves to talk about its democracy – except for when we don’t like its outcomes. The overturning of California’s Proposition 8 is a perfect example.

Five years ago, the people of California went to the polls and decided to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage via a ballot initiative known as Prop 8. This was after a California supreme court ruling that a previously voted-upon statute (Proposition 22) was unconstitutional under state law. People upset with Prop 8 then decided to sue to overturn it. The state government refused to defend it after it was overturned in federal district court. Eventually, the district court’s decision that Prop 8 was not in compliance with the US constitution became the law that went into effect.

Gay marriage, arguably, should never have been voted upon in the way that it was, but it must nevertheless be acknowledged that the court’s decision overturned “the will of the people”. In effect, what happened was that we said “the people can vote on it, and if we don’t like the outcome, then screw the result”. This point was made in part by Seth Masket last week, and it is one that will define the gay marriage debate going forward.

The US supreme court has, for now, left it up to states to determine whether or not marriage should be legal. While legalising gay marriage is becoming the majority opinion across the US, state polling indicates that marriage equality is far from becoming the law in every state. Surveys conducted over the past few years in a number of southern states have found that these states were not only less likely to support gay marriage than the rest of the country, but their rate of change was slower as well.

A number of southern states, from Alabama to West Virginia, could be waiting multiple decades until a majority of residents is willing to support same-sex marriage. I’d expect most, if not all, of the south to be in favor by 2030-2040. Before this point, however, any legalization of same-sex marriage in these states is going to have to come from federal intervention. Almost certainly, that will need to come from another supreme court decision dictating that marriage equality must become the law of the land nationwide. That decision, if and when it comes, will arrive despite “the will of the people” in much of the south.

But the situation is more complicated still. All the southern states except for West Virginia have in place a constitutional ban against same-sex marriage. All the southern states – except for Arkansas and Mississippi, where support for gay marriage is somewhere between 20% and 30% – require state legislative action before overturning a state constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

The fact that state legislatures will be required to act changes the entire equation for the south. All the southern legislatures with a constitutional ban against gay marriage also feature Republican control of at least one house of the state legislature. In most cases, Republicans control both houses with plenty of room to spare and no sign that control is going to switch anytime soon. All of the states that require going to the legislature demand super-majorities (60%+) and/or at least two consecutively elected legislatures to approve an amendment for it to reach the popular ballot.

What this basically means is the same-sex marriage debate is not even about what the majority of the people thinks in most of these states. Republican legislators control the action. That’s the whole game.

Throughout most of the south, Republican support for gay marriage is in the low teens. That has little changed in the past decade. Even if the rate of Republicans favoring gay marriage picked up by 1pt per year, it would still take until at least 2050 in most of the south before a pro-gay marriage position became the norm among Republican voters. That creates a huge difference between 2030 (or 2020, in the case of Virginia) as the likely date when a majority of southerners will approve of gay marriage and 2050 (or later) when a majority of Republicans in those states approve of it.

So, we’re probably faced with a same-sex marriage debate that will be decided and closed without people in the south having their voices heard. These are the two scenarios: either the supreme court will rule it legal in every southern state; or Republicans in those legislatures are going to hold it up long past the point that most people in these states accept it as the law of the land.

Until the point when polling in southern states shows a majority in favor, I’m sure those against it will claim to represent the popular will to support their position. At the point the polls turn in the other direction, those against same-sex marriage will quietly drop any mention of “the will of the people”. Even so, Republicans in state legislatures will be able to hold up legal change probably for years, despite being charged as “obstructionist”.

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Supreme court Doma and Prop 8 rulings align law with US public opinion | Harry Enten

The supreme court ruled almost exactly how Americans wanted, according to numerous polls on gay marriage issues

The US supreme court made two monumental rulings today. First, it struck down a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (Doma). Doma had previously made it so that gay marriages and the benefits that go with marriage would not be recognized by the federal government. The supreme court’s ruling does not require states that have laws against same-sex marriage to recognize them.

The ruling will be welcomed by most Americans. In poll after poll taken over the past few months, at least 60% of Americans have agreed that the federal government should recognize same-sex marriages in those states that allow it. This is significantly higher than the roughly 53% of Americans who believe same-sex marriage should be legalized everywhere.

The supreme court also decided to punt on Proposition 8 in California, which banned gay marriage in the state. The court’s ruling upholds a lower court’s decision to allow for same-sex marriage to be legalized in California, but it does not take a stand on whether same-sex marriage should become legal in every state. The ruling comports with the wishes of Californians. Over 55% of California voters want same-sex marriage to be legal versus the 48% who voted against Prop 8 in 2008.

The data is less clear on same-sex marriages nationwide. While most Americans believe same-sex marriage should be legal, polling is unclear on whether they want the federal government to force it upon the states. CBS News found that over 60% thought it should be left to the states, while an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll discovered the opposite. Even in that poll, however, most thought if a federal statute did exist it should define marriage as between one man and one woman. Thus, the lack of a wider ruling on marriage at large likely saves the court from issuing a divisive opinion.

The fact that the court did not act to make same-sex marriage the law of the land could have grave consequences for gay couples in the south. While most of the country has warmed to same-sex marriage, the south is a long way from doing so. In a previous column, I estimated that most of the south wouldn’t recognize gay marriage for at least another 20 to 30 years.

You can read more of that column here.

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Same-sex marriage could take decades to be legal in every state | Harry J Enten

Unless the federal government or supreme court act, southern states will most likely oppose gay marriage for the foreseeable future

The gay marriage movement is racing forward faster than ever, and with a new burst of life. This week, Minnesota became the third state to pass same-sex marriage this year, and the twelfth state overall, but most surprisingly, this was a state that, according to polls, was willing to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage a year ago.

Minnesota won’t be the last state to make do a quick turnaround. National polling indicates that the majority support for same-sex marriage is picking up by 2pt per year. Among states, gay marriage is popular in California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and many others.

Indeed, demographic models indicate that if put up for a vote, same-sex marriage would become legal in all but six states by 2020! Even Mississippi is projected to be up to near 40% support on the issue, gaining a little over 1.5pt per year. So the whole thing should be over soon, right? Not likely.

Unless the federal government or supreme court acts, it could take years and years for many southern states to legalize same-sex marriage.

As Nate Cohn notes, there’s reason to believe that the demographic models are off in the south. The south has a far higher percentage of white evangelicals than any other part of the country, and these voters have been very slow to change their views. The great majority of young, white evangelicals still oppose gay marriage, unlike other young voters.

State polls show a number of southern states running behind where the demographic models indicate where they should be.

Indeed, some states have shown very virtually no change since they approved constitutional amendments against same-sex marriage. At the rate Arkansas is moving, it will take more than 20 or even 30 years for the majority of voters to be in favor of same-sex marriage. In Kentucky, only 30% of voters 18-29-years-old are in favor of gay marriage.

The problem, however, is not just that it will take a while for a majority of voters to support same-sex marriage. All the southern states except for West Virginia have a constitutional ban against same-sex marriage, which requires an amendment to repeal the previous one. The process for doing so in many southern states requires a majority in the state legislature, which is to say that voters can’t just petition to get something on the ballot.

Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia can only get an amendment on the ballot with approval from the state legislature. West Virginia doesn’t allow referendums or initiatives to be voted upon, so it has to start in the legislature there, as well. Only Arkansas and Mississippi let voters directly pass a constitutional amendment.

The states that require legislature approval have very stringent rules, too: either a constitutional convention can be called, which is almost impossible, or the legislature can pass the amendment before sending it to the voters.

Alabama, Kentucky and North Carolina require +60% of each chamber of the state legislature to approve an amendment, just to get it on the ballot. A simple majority of voters must then approve. Right now, Republicans control over 60% of the seats in at least one chamber of all these state legislatures.

Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas require two-thirds of each chamber to approve an amendment for the ballot. Then, the amendments need a majority vote from the people. Republicans control over 55% of each house of these states.

Tennessee and Virginia require a majority of each chamber of the legislature in one session, then it must be voted upon again by the next legislature, which means an entire election must go by. In Tennessee, two-thirds of each house must then approve for it to be placed for a majority vote of the people; Virginia only needs a majority. Tennessee Republicans control 70% of each state chamber. Virginia Republicans hold two-thirds of the seats in Virginia.

The bottom line is that with the exception of Arkansas, Mississippi and Virginia, any southern state with a ban in place would need at least 60% each of their state houses to reverse the ban. Republicans have at least partial control of all the legislatures near the border and in the deep south. Many of these states were won over recently, as the last remnants of the Yellow Dog Democrats bit the dust. Change seems rather unlikely, except perhaps for peripheral states, like North Carolina and Virginia. The only one that isn’t Republican controlled, West Virginia, is so conservative that Joe Manchin, one of only two Democratic US senators who doesn’t personally support gay marriage, calls it home.

Republican control is a big deal because though the rest of the country has moved, Republicans, especially southern Republicans, have not. Only 26% of Republicans support gay marriage. The percentage of Americans in favor of same-sex marriage rose by 15pt over the past decade; the percentage of Republicans favoring gay marriage only rose by 3pt over the same period. That’s a growth rate of only 0.3pt a year.

Specific state polling is no more comforting to those looking forward to change. Support for same-sex marriage in these states is as follows: 10% of Georgia Republicans, 11% of Louisiana Republicans, 12% of Kentucky Republicans, 12% of North Carolina Republicans, 9% of South Carolina Republicans, 14% of Texas Republicans, and a quarter of Virginia Republicans.

With the exception of Virginia, it’s pretty clear that southern Republican support for gay marriage is lower than among Republicans nationally. As such, it’s difficult to see how support among southern Republicans will hit 50% anytime before 2040. It’s hard to imagine more than the stray Republican voting for same-sex marriage. Polarization is at all-time high, and politicians are more afraid about losing primaries than general elections. Republicans have no need to vote for same-sex marriage.

Thus, unless the federal government jumps in, most, if not all southern states won’t legalize same-sex marriage for the foreseeable future. Most of their citizens don’t want it, and by the time they do, most Republicans still won’t. Considering you’ll need a majority or supermajority of state legislators to get the bans reversed, and that Republicans have a strong hold over these chambers, same-sex marriage in the south doesn’t have much of a chance anytime soon.

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The final three: the Democratic senators against gay marriage | Harry J Enten

Only three Senate Democrats now refuse to support same-sex marriage. So why won’t they toe the party line?

We’re now down to the final three!

No, I’m talking about a sports tournament. I’m talking about the number of Democratic senators who are opposed to gay marriage. With South Dakota’s Tim Johnson announcing his support, only Arkansas’ Mark Pryor, Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin are left as Democratic senators against same-sex marriage. So just why are these senators holding out?

Mark Pryor hasn’t made any statements to suggest that he personally approves same-sex marriage. In fact, he seems to be undecided on civil unions, which have long been a more accepted middle ground. Whatever he says, we’ll have to take Pryor at his word, though he has some plain political reasons to oppose gay marriage, starting with the fact that Arkansans passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in 2004 – with 75% of the vote.

Even if the US overall has undergone a sea-change, there’s little sign that opinion in Arkansas has altered much over the past nine years. Late last year, a University of Arkansas poll found that 55% of Arkansans were against any legal recognition for same-sex couples, including gay marriage and civil unions. Even in famously conservative Louisiana, only 41% were against some sort of legal recognition. In polls taken last year, only about 30% of Americans opposed recognizing same-sex couples in any official capacity.

In the same poll, only 18% of Arkansas adults thought gay marriage should be legal; when civil unions appear on the questionnaire as an alternative, support for gay marriage generally drops. Yet, on a similar question nationwide, support for same-sex marriage polled at 37% and 38% in Fox News and CBS/New York Times, respectively – double the numbers in Arkansas.

Pryor is running for re-election in 2014, and in a state shifting to the right. His Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Blanche Lincoln, lost by 21pt in 2010, after having won two terms. President Obama lost the state by 24pt, even as he won the national vote by 4pt. Republicans just gained control of the state legislature after Democrats had controlled it for nearly 140 years.

Adding to his problems, Pryor’s approval ratings are lackluster. In the latest Talk Business/Hendrix College survey, Pryor has a +7pt net approval. That’s quite the downturn for a politician against whom no Republican was willing to run in 2008. Also, that net approval probably obscures part of Pryor’s troubles: many voters are unsure of him, and only 42% of Arkansans approve of his performance. In fact, a Republican poll already shows Pryor losing to a potential Republican opponent.

In the case of Mary Landrieu, it’s clearly politics that are keeping her from endorsing same-sex marriage. Landrieu has more or less said that she supports it, personally, but has always couched those statements with a clear desire not to go against her state’s consensus. Back in 2004, Louisiana voters passed a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage, with 78% of the vote. The situation in Louisiana has changed, but not that much.

Today, only 29% of Louisiana voters think that same-sex marriage should be legal, and 59% believe it should be illegal, per Public Policy Polling (PPP). We might that expect to rise by about 3pt by 2014, but it will be a long time before Louisiana has anything near a majority supporting same-sex marriage.

Landrieu, like Pryor, is up for re-election in 2014. When she first won a seat in the Senate, Landrieu represented a state that was more Democratic than the nation as a whole. Since then, Louisiana has leaped to the right. President Obama won only 40.6% of the vote in the Bayou State in 2012 – 10pt lower than his national result.

Landrieu probably feels that she has little room for error. The latest PPP survey pegs her net approval at only +2pt. Put that together with the fact that she’s never won a race with more than 52% of the vote, and you start to get a picture of a senator who is trying to walk a delicate line.

Joe Manchin’s opposition to same-sex marriage appears to be borne almost completely out of ideology, rather than electoral concerns. He voted against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and he backed the Defense of Marriage Act. Overall, he’s rated the most conservative Democrat elected to the 113th senate.

Even if Manchin wanted to get in touch with his liberal side, the fact is that West Virginia, too, has rapidly turned to the right – much like Louisiana. Clinton won it by 15pt in 1996, and he was winning nationally by 8.5pt. In 2012, even though Manchin won re-election by 24pt, Obama lost West Virginia by 27pt. Add the fact that only 19% of West Virginians supported gay marriage in 2011 – meaning that majority support is hardly likely by 2018 – and Manchin has no electoral incentive to break with his own convictions and support same-sex marriage.

But should any of these politicians fear a political backlash if they change their tune to fit with the rest of their party?

Probably not: gay marriage, as an issue, can rarely make or break a politician. It didn’t even register in a national CBS News poll last month, which asked voters to rank their most important issues. Last year, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a politician’s position on same-sex marriage was not important to whether they were voted into office. That’s why you saw North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan come out in favor of gay marriage, even as she gears up for re-election in a state that chose to ban gay marriage last year with 61% of the vote.

The issue for Landrieu, Pryor and, to a lesser extent, Manchin is that they represent states in which Obama is deeply disliked. Given that neither Landrieu nor Pryor are particularly popular themselves, they likely worry that any issue at all could be the final nail in the coffin of their hopes for re-election.

Maybe, next week, we’ll see if these stragglers fold into the party ranks. One way or another, we’ll see the consequences come November 2014.

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If the US held a referendum today, gay marriage would win | Harry J Enten

Even allowing for polling overestimating support for same-sex marriage, a majority of Americans would now vote for equality

Much hangs on how the nine US supreme court justices rule later this year on the two same-sex marriage cases they’ve heard this week, but if given the chance would Americans vote in favor of marriage equality?

Would they have done so last year, or, more importantly, today? I think the answer to all those questions is likely yes – but that differs from Nate Silver’s more equivocal judgment and what Chris Stirewalt believes.

Let’s start with the fact that the aggregate of all the same-sex marriage polling had support from about 50% of the population and opposition from 43% in 2012. Since then, we’ve seen about 1-2pt increase in the percentage favoring marriage. So, in order to believe that gay marriage wouldn’t pass a nationwide referendum, you’d have to think that this polling data is unrepresentative of an election’s results.

One reason you might believe that is because actual voters tend to be more conservative than adults at large. That’s why Obama was winning handily among all adults, but was in a tight race with Romney among likely voters. Is this gap apparent with regard to same-sex marriage? As it turns out, not really.

On the eve of the 2012 election, Pew saw a minimal difference between how adults as a whole and likely voters viewed same-sex marriage. All adults were in favor of same-sex marriage, 49% to 40%, while likely voters were in favor by 49% to 42%.

The other argument against these national polls posits some sort of “gay Bradley effect“. That is, polls for same-sex marriage state ballot measures have had a tendency to underestimate voters who wanted to ban same-sex marriage. Some, like Stirewalt, argue that a social desirability bias makes people not want to admit voting against perceived civil rights.

Either way, Patrick Egan found that the anti-gay marriage side (pdf) did 7pt better than polls suggested, while the pro-gay marriage side did about as well. California’s Prop 8, for instance, trailed in the polls before passing.

When I ran my own data back in 2009, however, it was fairly clear that the “gay Bradley effect” was lessening over time. Polls taken closer to 2009 were more accurate than ones taken further back.

Since 2009, there have been five same-sex marriage ballots with polling conducted within 10 days of the election. The 10 days are key because ballot wording can be very confusing, and voters only really tune into campaigns in the final weeks. Gregory Lewis and Charles Gossett showed that confusing ballot wording is a likely part of the reason why polling on Prop 8 was inaccurate.

When we look at the ballot measures polls taken within 10 days of the elections, from 2009 onward, the pro same-sex marriage side didn’t suffer anywhere close to the 7pt penalty that Egan had discovered. Maine’s 2009 Question 1 had one poll taken within 10 days of the election. Public Policy Polling (pdf) (PPP) had voters “vetoing” same-sex marriage by a 4pt margin, and it was vetoed by a 6pt margin. That’s only a difference of 2pt, not 7pt.

North Carolina’s May 2012 Amendment 1 had two polls taken within 10 days of the election. An average of PPP’s and SurveyUSA’s polls, with undecideds allocated proportionally to decided voters, had North Carolinians banning gay marriage by a 19pt margin. They ended up banning it by a 22pt margin, a difference of 3pt.

Maine’s November 2012 Question 1 had three polls taken within 10 days of the election. The median result of the polls from Critical Insights, Maine’s People Resource Center and PPP had voters approving of same-sex marriage by 7.2pt. It passed by 5.4pt. A difference of a little less than 2pt.

Minnesota’s Amendment 1 had three polls taken within 10 days of the election. The median result of two SurveyUSA polls and PPP’s survey, which allocated undecideds, had the amendment to ban same-sex marriage failing by 1pt. The actual voters were against the amendment by 3.8pt. In this case, the polls overstated those favoring the ban by about 3pt.

Finally, Washington’s Referendum 74 had two relevant polls. The average result of the PPP and SurveyUSA, with undecideds allocated, had same-sex marriage passing by 10pt. It passed by 7.4pt, for a difference of 2.6pt.

In four of the five instances, the opposition to the same-sex marriage side did better than polling predicted – but that difference was not particularly significant; certainly not of the order of 7pt, as previously found. The largest difference was just 3pt, and the median error in margin was only 2pt.

Applying this 2pt penalty to the 7pt edge that the pro-same-sex marriage crowd had over the opposition in 2012 national polling still gives the pro side a 5pt edge. If we apply an additional 2pt penalty (see Pew above), because most national polls question adults, and not likely voters, the pro same-sex marriage side still had a 3pt edge going into the 2012 election. Already, now, that lead would be closer to 4-5pt.

We can check my work by looking at the 2012 national exit polls. These polls are weighted to the actual results of the November elections. Voters cast their ballots anonymously, away from any interviewers, and drop their ballots in a box. There’s no reason to think voters would fear giving an “undesirable” answer, as nobody’s around to judge.

The exit poll asked: “Should your state legally recognize same-sex marriage?” “Yes” beat “no” by the exact 3pt that our adjustment of national surveys would suggest. The fact that the exit polls and national polls matched up makes me even more confident in the finding.

So, yes, I think Americans would have voted in favor of same-sex marriage, had they been given the opportunity in 2012-13. The national polls may be overstating support right now, but any error is not enough to erase the majority in favor of gay marriage.

In the end, though, I don’t think there’s much disagreement about the road going forward. Same-sex marriage support is increasing every day. A national same-sex marriage ballot measure would likely win by a huge margin in 2016. The tide has turned. It’s tough to imagine it receding.

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Americans Secretly Oppose Gay Marriage

If you’ve struggled to find humor in politics recently, rejoice. At least the skewed-polls people are still around.

Yesterday, Chris Stirewalt blogged for Fox News that polls overstate support for gay marriage. Voicing a similar belief, leading social conservative Gary Bauer showed little concern over public opinion, telling Fox’s Chris Wallace:

“No, I’m not worried about it because the polls are skewed, Chris. Just this past November, four states, very liberal states, voted on this issue. And my side lost all four of those votes. But my side had 45, 46 percent of the vote in all four of those liberal states.”

As with many fallacies, there’s an iota of truth here. Stirewalt draws on work by New York University political scientist Patrick Egan that shows that late-season polls typically overestimate support for gay marriage compared with the election returns.

I don’t really have a problem so far. A Pollster article by Harry back in 2009 made a similar point and explored some ways to improve predictive models. The gap between pre-election polls and election returns, in other words, is well documented.

So, the polls are skewed…

Here’s where I depart from most interpretations of this observation. The poll-vote gap does not necessarily imply that the polls are “skewed.” Could it? Yes. But it doesn’t need to. I suspect a good bit of the bias comes from who votes not how they vote.

Stirewalt argues that the polls are skewed and mainly blames social desirability bias. In this line of reasoning,  respondents do not want to admit opposition to gay rights for fear of social judgement; instead, they act supportive but cast their secret ballot against. In other words, the “true” level of support is systematically lower than the polls show.

What’s crazy to me is that Stirewalt, even after basing his entire argument on Egan’s research, ignores the part where Egan dismisses social desirability as the primary cause of the polls’ inaccuracy. And Egan couldn’t be much plainer about it: “On the whole, these analyses fail to pin the blame for the inaccuracy of polling on same‐sex marriage bans on social desirability bias” (p. 7)1.

What seems most likely is that pollsters haven’t figured out how to calibrate their samples to match the turnout. Ballot measures only attract at least moderately engaged observers. On an issue like gay marriage, it’s not surprising that some who ostensibly support gay rights aren’t nearly as motivated as those who have social, cultural or religious objections to it. The polls may decently represent the “true” proportion of citizens who support gay marriage, but not the class of voters who cast a ballot on the issue.

We’re Missing the Point

But far, far more importantly, any potential skew in the polls misses the true point here. Let’s assume that the polls are skewed, and that “true” support for gay marriage is actually seven points (best guess from the Egan research) lower than the polls say.

So what?

Those who invoke public opinion aren’t really that worried about crossing 50 percent. Even if the polls exaggerate support for gay marriage, the trend favors the equal rights argument. The above figure2 shows general sentiment (“thermometer” scores) toward gays and lesbians in the American National Election Study3. This figure by Nate Silver shows a similar rise in support for gay marriage. And this figure from Gallup shows a widening gap favoring general rights for gays and lesbians.

In this light, even yelling “Skewed Polling!” doesn’t change the fact that support for gays and their ability to marry is rising steadily.
Now I know that race and sexual orientation are not the same, but there are some similarities between the above kernel density plot and the one at the top of the post. In general, support for rights and general sentiment co-evolve. Sentiment toward black Americans has increased even in the post-Civil Rights era. We see a smaller but similar “swell” in sentiment for homosexuals, with every reason to think it will continue on its current trajectory.

Even if support today is really say, 51 percent instead of 58 percent, it’s much higher than it used to be.

Could we just be getting more politically correct, instead of more ‘liberal’, on gay rights? Sure, but the green line in the time series doesn’t show any real change in the rate of respondents opting out. No, young people are coming of age with a more permissive view on this issue.

Skew or no, the trend speaks for itself.

Notes:
[1] Now, as a brief aside, Egan’s first test for social desirability bias makes no sense to me. I can imagine plenty of reasons why a state’s gay population wouldn’t predict the poll-election gap. But the second test is much stronger: despite the social acceptance of LGBTs growing, the gap has become smaller. All in all, I’m sure social desirability is part of the story, but it’s most likely not the primary factor.

[2] The figure shows thermometers scaled on the interval [0, 1], as well as the proportion of respondents who respond to gays warmly (therm > 0.5), cooly (therm < 0.5), and those who opt to not answer. Confidence bands are generated using 1,000 bootstraps from the survey margin of error. The margin around “skip” seems odd, but for convenience I’m treating “skip” as an expression of a desire to not answer, and thus as a random variable in its own right.

[3] The ANES, funded by the National Science Foundation, could be at risk thanks to recent Congressional targeting of political science. Contact your representatives in Congress because (I promise!) most scholars use the study for more consequential research than I.