Chapter 11 - Public Opinion

What is a better way to measure public opinion than direct communication?

Elections

What would happen in 2015?

The national conversation towards racial inequality would change. Perhaps due to events, media coverage, and the use of social media that ensued after the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Micheal Brown).

What's the number one thing voters used when evaluating candidates and forming opinions about specific issues?

Their political party affiliation. (If your Republican you're likely to favor Republican candidates rather than Democratic ones, if you're a Democrat you're likely to oppose a republican made policy, and support the policy of a democrat, even if you don't know much about that policy in the first place).

Congress ignores public opinion at its ___. If the legislation continues to be ___, dissatisfied voters may take out their anger against ___ in the next election.

peril, unpopular, incumbents

Before PRWORA was passed, a survey of Americans nationwide found that ___

"the public supports strong welfare reform measures, such as time limits, and work requirements, but is reluctant to simply cut people off and lave them without a means of basic support."

incumbents

(Of an official or regime) currently holding office

caucus

(in some US states) a meeting at which local members of a political party register their preference among candidates running for office or select delegates to attend a convention.

In mass surveys, what is often the margin of error?

2-3%, meaning that 95% of the time, the true number lies within three points on either side of the measured number. (I.e. a figure of 4% could be 2% or 1%).

According to the survey for PRWORA:

68% of Americans favored cutting welfare off for everyone after two years and requiring them to take a job, but support drops to 28% if the job wages in question prevent a family from being raised, and down to 16% if the person is unable to find a job.

As revealed by the graph on page 373 ___

80% of Blacks, and 63% of Hispanics believed that police sometimes treat minority groups unfairly.

What interesting data would be compiled from police officers following the events of Ferguson?

86% of police officers reported that fatal incidents between law enforcement officers and African Americans have made their lives harder, and 93% of police officers were more concerned about their safety.

What do some scholars agree can help people to make proper sense of a political issue or problem?

A "gut rationality" composed of an Individual's experience and interactions with government accumulated over a lifetime. (They may also rely on advice from friends or colleagues to help them out).

Ultimately then, what is THE GOAL of a sample based on the problems we've discussed?

A representative sample, or in other words, a sample that reflects the characteristics of a population.

What do constituents, and their representatives generally need when it comes to public opinion?

A vehicle in which coherent and meaningful preferences can be communicated so that representatives can understand, and have accountability for their future political behavior.

What does the gender gap specify?

American women are more likely to be Democratic, while American men are more likely to vote for Republican candidates.

Arguments about public opinion generally debate what two perspectives?

Americans are unable to express meaningful opinions on the vast array of issues facing the country, OR, that although some individuals lack the information they need, they can overcome or work around these challenges effectively by making inferences based on cues from their political ideology, peers, or political parties.

Why is it difficult to measure the degree to which public opinion shapes the legislation passed by congress?

Because multiple factors influence Congress in the policymaking process.

Whats one drawback to focus groups?

Because they are small, they cannot paint a picture of an entire constituency.

How does this chapter choose to teach us about public opinion?

By examining how recent transgressions towards African Americans, and the ensuing protests, have produced meaningful changes in American public opinion on issues involving both officer safety and civil liberties.

How can a margin of error be reduced?

By increasing sample size, however, in turn, this increases the cost of a survey.

What has the media been criticized about as it comes to tracking polls?

Determining the level of support for a candidate by focusing too much on the "horse race" of tracking polls, and too little on covering important stories about actual candidate policy.

What else divides American public opinion other than gender gap?

Differences in race and ethnicity. (I.e. colored people emphasize justice and equality of opportunity more than Whites. In addition, events such as Ferguson are perceived drastically differently depending on certain events and how they should be dealt with.

What would happen in August 2016?

During a preseason game for the NFL, Colin Kaepernick refused to stand to the national anthem. He claimed that there were "bodies in the street"s and that officers were getting "paid leave and getting away with murder".

What's a problem with just expressing opinions in polls? (And thus another problem with polling).

Expressing opinions in polls doesn't accurately represent the intensity to which someone cares about something.

What do officials utilize to measure public opinion rather than relying upon direct communication or elections?

Focus groups

What do credible polls do?

Help representatives understand what their constituents want so that they can deliver policies the public favors.

What's a great example of the limits of polling data?

How polling failed to predict the 2016 election. (The poll said there would be a 66% chance of Hillary winning, and yet, she wouldn't win).

What else is a problem in how a poll might measure data?

If a poll systematically over or under samples individuals based on characteristics that are relevant to what the poll is trying to measure. (I.e. accidentally only representing people with landlines AKA mostly old people).

Why is incoherent public opinion a problem?

If our elected representatives do not know what we want, they have a hard time representing us in the policymaking process.

What stark differences would be encapsulated in the Pew Research public opinion survey?

In a random sample of 1,000 Americans, 80% of Blacks said that Brown's shooting raised "important issues about race" while only 37% of Whites agreed, and 47% of Whites said the case was getting too much attention.

Broad

Including or coming from many people of many kinds

Why do both individual and aggregate opinions can make American Public Opinion difficult to understand?

Individuals may not have meaningful preferences on any given issue, and even if they do, putting all of these individual preferences together may not yield any meaningful and useful information.

"But what makes an idea's time come?"

Is a very good question if people want to shape policies through public opinion and get their voices heard.

What are two main limitations for measuring public opinion by election?

Many eligible voters do not vote, and additionally, elections tend to revolve around a small set of issues. For the majority of complex policy issues, elections are too broad a tool to reveal useful information.

What is a problem with obtaining sample that's truly representative of an overall population using Caller ID?

Many people ignore calls from polling organizations, which makes it more challenging to obtain a random and representative sample.

What are entrance and exit polls sometimes used to do?

Measure whether voters change their minds after attending events such as a party caucus.

What happened on August, 9, 2014?

Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Micheal Brown following a confrontation in Ferguson Missouri. (The officer would go on to resign, and many eyewitnesses would claim Brown would surrender before being shot).

What would happen in 2016-2017 as a result of Kaepernick's actions?

Other NFL players would kneel, and so would attendees. At one point causing VP Mike Pence to leave after several 49ers kneeled during the anthem.

What is unfeasible and expensive and what is used instead?

Polling every constituent's opinion, so instead scientific polls are used. (Which have statistically significant sample size to represent an entire population).

What are push polls?

Polls taken for the purpose of providing information on an opponent that would lead respondents to vote against that candidate.

What happened the day after Brown's death?

Protesters gathered peacefully in Ferguson, but would erupt into violence that would ensue for two weeks.

PRWORA is an example of when:

Public Polling significantly affects policy-making.

What would happen as a result of a change towards looking at racial inequality in 2015?

Public opinion on the issue of police-citizen interactions, especially in predominantly African American communities. (To many Americans this anger came as a surprise).

What is public polling used by?

Researchers, candidates, elected officials, interests groups, the media, and others.

Since pollsters can't survery every person in a population:

Researches cannot know for certain what the true opinion of that population is. The goal however is to minimize uncertainty about the true opinion as much as possible while also conducting a inexpensive poll.

What shocking discovery was made by two researchers in their book What Americans Know About Politics and Why?

Significant percentages of Americans were not able to answer basic questions about American government, such as naming branches, or knowing protections in the bill of rights.

What did Kaepernick say regarding the risk of his protest?

That even if his endorsements, and opportunity to play football was taken away, that he'd still know that he had stood up for what was right.

What does the use of random selection mean?

That everyone who is an appropriate subject og the poll has an equal chance of being selected for a political survey. Pollsters cannot survey every person in a population

What do critics of the use of polling argue?

That public officials are meant to lead, not follow the whims of popular thought, that popular opinion is sometimes invalid, and that question phrasing, for example, can skew the data for what public opinion should actually be.

What would surprise African American communities after the change in public opinion towards race in 2015?

That the problems revolving police-citizen interactions, had not come to the public's attention sooner.

What spawned #BlackLivesMatter

The acquittal of George Zimmerman in 2013 after the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida. (After Ferguson, BLM would become a part of the national conversation in a much bigger way).

What other strange factor may have an effect on polling?

The identity of the poller. (I.e. you're more likely to support BLM if you're polled by a black guy).

In August 2017, the Pew Research center after asking Americans if they believed race "was a big problem" in the US, would go on to reveal that ___.

There were sharp divisions based on political partisanship, reflecting the degree to which NFL protests, Trump's comments, and the role of the media on impacting racial divisions in America.

Small groups of motivated citizens may take time to directly communicate with representatives, but ultimately ___

These interactions won't convey the overall preferences of the citizens as a whole.

News outlets may use exit polls to get information out faster than their competitors, but what are the risks in doing so?

These polls may sample voters favoring a certain candidate. Also announcing the results of exit polls while polling is ongoing may run the risk of influencing the election. (Some voters of the opposing side may not turn out due to demotivation caused by an already surveyed "winning side").

What are the three main criticisms of internet polling?

They are voluntary, and thus not random, it's unlikely the respondents represent a cross section of all demographics, and internet polls do not have an established track of reliablity.

How have news reporters avoided the problems that arise from releasing info about exit polls?

They've volunteered not to release exit poll results untill all of a state's polling places have closed.

How can elected officials use polling?

To figure out what the public wants. They can also use that information to shape the way they spin their policy decisions to the public.

Think (11.1)

To what degree is it possible to accurately measure public opinion, when most Americans lack understanding about complex policy issues?

What are some reasons pollsters might not have been able to predict the desire for Trump as president?

Trump voters didn't want to be called, Trump voters didn't want to explicitly promoted a censured man, pollsters had a hard time identifying likely voters since more people that didn't usually vote, turned out to vote for Trump.

What does public opinion by definition include?

Two components: An individual's own beliefs and attitudes, and the blending of these individual preferences into a larger concept that we call public opinion.

What are two basic requirements for effective representation in democracy?

Voters must have opinions and preferences that can be communicated to their elected representatives. Second, elected officials must respond to these expressed preferences.

What would PRWORA ultimately determine based on Public Polling feedback?

Welfare recipients would need to find a job in two years, and have a limit of five years of receiving benefits.

The degree to which polling influences decisions in Congress depends upon ___

Whether Congressmen view themselves as delegates-people that carry out the desires of their constituents or trustees-who make their decisions based on their information and judgement.

Although most scholars agree that Americans often lack opinions on many issues in public policy, what do they disagree on?

Whether or not Americans needs Encyclopedic sets of sets of policy preferences to have an opinion.

What is one of the most interesting and important debates about American Public opinion?

Whether or not something as broad as American "public opinion" exists. While many Americans have thoughts and ideas about politics and policies, many do not have well formed views on these topics.

What is hard to determine in a scientific poll?

Who should be included in a sample. (Since for some political polls the applicable sample space may be so complex that it will include many significant ages, races, and even occupational distinctions).

Which types of Americans fared worse in their answers to questions about factual knowledge of politics?

Younger Americans, lower-income Americans, and members of racial and ethnic minorities. (For "News IQ" quizzes that tested questions regarding political figures, knowledge of current issues, and geography).

For a sample to be useful, it must represent larger populations ___

as accurately as possible. (Which is why voluntary responses from pollers doing call-in-polls are suspect).

Although it's hard to assert Ferguson was the cause of Americans' changing perception of Racial discrimination, there is a potentially meaningful ___ that forms a relationship between those two things.

correlation

Members of Congress may decide to ___ public opinion on passing legislation.

ignore

Public opinion evolves, impacting:

media, interests groups, and politicians who must respond to it.

According to the survey for The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act :

only 30% of Americans supported to legislation

One of the single most effective predictors of public opinion is ___

party affiliation (During the Ferguson event, 61% of Republicans thought the race was getting too much attention, while 68% of Democrats thought the shooting rose important questions about race in American society).

Politicians ignore ___ at their ___, and changes in public opinion should ___.

public opinion, peril, not be taken lightly

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Congress in fall of 2017, is an example of legislation passed despite ___.

public opposition (public opinion opposition)

The events in Ferguson and the NFL protest highlight differences in the public's opinion about ___.

race relations

Surveys that allow anyone to participate are not ___

reliable (since [these straw polls as they're called] they can be taken at any place, with any group of people that aren't random).

There are several reasons Congress would pass a bill opposed by most of ___

the public (in the case of The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it was that Congress believed that it would benefit citizens in the long run, as a result, Republicans who supported the bill originally, may favor Congress, and increase its approval rating. Funding from donors may also influence things, as well as the overall objectives of the current government [I.e. Trump wanting to reform taxes]).

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1986

was bipartisan legislation that addressed the public's dissatisfaction with the nation's welfare system.