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Polling could be missing reality, again

#1
C C Offline
http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3...lity-again

EXCERPT: The biggest “fake news” story of the last few years was that Donald Trump had almost no chance of being elected president. The entire pundit-polling-news establishment (including myself) was wrong, and the expectation was that these institutions would recalibrate their coverage to reflect a true picture of the country. They made an enormous miscalculation and they would, of course, make changes.

Almost two years later, very little has changed in polling and analysis at major institutions and news media. If anything, the polling has drifted even further from reality when you look at the questions being asked and, more importantly, the questions not being asked. You don’t need polls to see the America you live in. You need polls to understand the part of America you don’t know, don’t see, and don’t understand.

[...] Notice a disconnect between the polls and the people? The questions focus on the anti-Trump storyline as though the point of the questions is to prove the validity of that coverage. Except for a single query about Trump’s performance on the economy, the rest of the questions are framed in ways that would lead any reader to believe everything the president does is wrong and opposed by the public. Some of it is. But not to the extent depicted. That’s the danger in polls that miss the full story.

Look at the questions on immigration. NBC asked if people think immigration helps or hurts the country and found that 56 percent think immigration is helpful. It also asked people to rate Trump in his “treatment of immigrants and their families” — a question I have never seen before — to capitalize on the separation of children, which we already know was overwhelming disapproved by 88 percent in a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll.

But the questions ignore the heart of the issue: The battle is not over immigration per se but over illegal immigration. The public is quite sour on illegal immigration. Yet, you rarely if ever see a fair question on sanctuary city policies, which 84 percent oppose in the last Harvard CAPS/Harris poll. Or on chain migration or on immigration lotteries. The real picture on immigration, especially in those areas of the country that have experienced lost jobs, is that many people believe illegal immigration reduced their wages. Despite compassion for those who are already here, most voters have low tolerance for continued illegal immigration, and most believe even legal immigration should be limited below current levels. Yet, none of those key points that depict two sides of this very emotional issue comes through in the questions asked.

Next, let’s look at the questions on tariffs....

MORE: http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3...lity-again
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