Public Opinion Strategies

For quite some time, Republican pollsters have been making the point to their clients: don’t confuse the attitudes of base and swing voters toward the President.  Base GOP voters do not like Obama’s policies, and  they dislike him personally (some more vehemently than others).  However, we had consistently seen in our polls and focus groups that [...] Read more

With much speculation about Hispanics and the 2012 election, we thought it worth taking a look.  Anecdotally you hear whispers (some louder than others) about President Obama’s erosion in the Hispanic community, that Hispanics are turning against him headed into 2012.  But is it true?
In 2008, Obama received 66% of the Hispanic vote, an impressive [...] Read more

The following two tables always stun Republicans when I do a presentation: Read more

The point is — John McCain got the same percentage of the white vote while losing in 2008 that George W. Bush got in winning the electoral college in 2000 (note to Dems reading this — what has two thumbs and doesn’t care about [...] Read more

A lot of pundits have been overreaching on their analysis of the extraordinarily dramatic data that has shown significant voter anger at Washington.  There have been predictions that incumbents are “unsafe at any speed” and that voters are going to wipe out both Republicans (who after all control the House, where legislation passes before Harry [...] Read more

The Iranian hostage crisis, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, Lehman Brother’s collapse and the recessions that defined the 1980, 1992 and the 2008 presidential campaigns … these are the signal events that changed and then defined the last 30 years of American politics.
They are joined now by another signal event:  The debt ceiling [...] Read more

Since Truman, five presidents have won re-election and two have lost.   The average Misery Index for the winners was 8.89 the October prior to the November election.
In contrast, the two losers (Presidents Carter and Bush 41), suffered from an average Index of 15.39.  Ouch.
Where is President Obama?  As of last month, the Index was pegged [...] Read more

With State Senator Alberta Darling’s 54% win last night, Public Opinion Strategies helped defend the GOP majority and turn back a public employee union sponsored recall election.
Congratulations to Senator Darling and all of those involved in the campaign.
From the get-go, the campaign used our research to guide its messaging – Darling was NEVER below 50%, [...] Read more

The results of our latest national survey of 800 likely 2012 voters point to eleven percent (11%) of likely voters owning a Twitter account.  And only four percent (4%) say they have accessed their Twitter the day before.
So, who are these voters with a Twitter account? Read more

A younger group: 80% are 18-44 year olds
Slightly more female [...] Read more

This post was written by Glen Bolger and Jim Hobart
 Last week, following the killing of Osama Bin Laden, we looked at the average job approval bump for Presidents following major military and/or national security events. Not including the post 9/11 response, the average Presidential approval bump was 13% for an average of 22 weeks. Eleven [...] Read more

Not including the post-9/11 response, the average presidential approval rating bumps up 13% for an average of 22 weeks. Read more