Posted on November 3, 2011 at 8:52pm
by Becket Adams
Quinnipiac University is well known for conducting polls that are regularly featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal.
Recently, they conducted a poll that, contrary to the common narrative, reveals more voters disapprove of the Occupy Wherever movement than support it.
“Just 30 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the protests, while 39 percent do not,” reports Business Insider. “Among independent voters, the spread is 29-42 against — a warning sign for Democrats who are trying to bring the movement into the mainstream.”
This shows a marked change from a recent CNN poll that claimed “32 percent of Americans supported the movement, while 29 percent viewed it unfavorably.”
As always, whenever these polls come along, it may be prudent to take the results with a grain of salt.
As written earlier on The Blaze:
Polls are not definitive by any means and usually only give a rough picture. In fact, there are several problems that need to be considered before one accepts the results of any poll. For example, there may be a problem with the sample design (for telephone surveys, how the numbers were selected and how the individuals are selected within the household), non-availability, the refusal problem (is the refusal rate different on the particular variable we are measuring?), question wording, question order, deliberate, or unconscious, lying or false reporting by respondents, or inappropriate or inadequate weighing of data.
All of these variables have been shown in various studies to be the source of not just small errors but sometimes quite substantial ones. Unfortunately, there are not many methods that allow one to quantify the effects of these errors or to validate the results within any kind of reasonable measure. Out of everything that can go wrong in a survey, only the “sampling error” can be quantified.
So what methods did Quinnipiac use?
According to their survey:
From October 25 – 31, Quinnipiac University surveyed 2,294 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.1 percentage points. Live interviewers call land lines and cell phones.
Therefore, the Quinnipiac poll may have some of the aforementioned survey errors. Nevertheless, the results are intriguing (to say the least).
“Support for the Occupy Wall Street movement appears to fall along one cultural line — college graduates have positive views of the movement almost as much as they have negative views, by a 38-42 margin,” writes Business Insider. “Among those without a college degree, 26 percent support the movement, while 37 percent oppose.”
The survey also claims that support for the Occupy movement is almost identical to the support for the tea party movement at nearly identical 31 percent–although, according to the survey, 45 percent of Americans have an “unfavorable view” of the tea party movement.
Furthermore, the survey found that respondents without college degrees are “less likely to hold unfavorable views of the tea party (39 percent unfavorable) than college graduates (57 percent).”
Shocker.
Other findings include:
59 – 32 percent [believe] immigration reform should primarily move towards stronger enforcement rather than integrating illegal immigrants into U.S. society
American voters were split 45 – 44 percent on whether the U.S. did the right thing using military force in Libya. A total of 54 percent give President Obama “a lot” or “some” credit for bringing down Gadhafi.
60 percent of respondents disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the economy
61 percent of respondents approve of the way Barack Obama is handling the situation in Iraq
62 percent of respondents disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling creating jobs
See the poll here: November 3, 2011 – U.S. Voters Say Super Committee Will Fail To Cut Debt, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Occupy Wall Street Less Unpopular Than Tea Party
[Author's note: it might be useful to point out the the title of the survey seems biased. Rather than titling the report in such a way as to reflect the waning support for OWS, the authors thought it better to say, "Hey, well at least it's not as unpopular as the tea party!"]
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