In Saturday’s Washington Post, Joel Benenson, lead pollster for the White House, has published a response to an op-ed by Democratic strategists Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen, who argued Friday that the Democratic party’s “blind persistence” in the “march of folly” for health care reform will lead to an “electoral rout” in November.
Not so, says Benenson. The American public is, in fact, “closely divided when it comes to supporting or opposing various health-care plans.” As proof, Benenson cites a recent Washington Post poll showing that 49 percent of those surveyed oppose the current Democratic health care proposal, while 46 percent support it. (The Post poll also found that 60 percent say the Democratic plan is too complicated, 59 percent say it’s too expensive, and 74 percent say they trust their insurance company to handle their claims fairly — but never mind.)
Benenson says the Post results are reliable because they are “consistent with eight of the 12 most recent independent public polls reported on Pollster.com.” Which leads to a question: You’re looking at the last dozen polls on something. Why throw four of them out? And even then, do the remaining eight polls really support your case?
The answer is no. If you look at the 12 most recent independent polls on Pollster.com, you’ll find every one of them shows that more people oppose health care reform than support it, and most of the polls show a significantly wider margin of opposition than Benenson suggests. (I’m not sure which ones Benenson counted, but I’m not counting the Post poll, which Benenson uses as the standard of measurement, three online polls by YouGov that show the public both opposed and in favor, plus one by Kaiser that shows an even split.) Going backwards in chronological order, those polls showed people opposed to the current Democratic plan by two percentage points; three points; 11 points; eight points; six points; 15 points; nine points; 12 points; 11 points; 19 points; 12 points; and 19 points. The polls were by AP, Gallup, Rasmussen, Ipsos, Newsweek, Public Opinion Strategies, PPP, Pew, and Quinnipiac.
Four of the dozen polls were by Rasmussen, and they generally show a wide margin of opposition. But the Quinnipiac poll showed a 19-point margin of opposition; the Pew poll showed a 12-point margin, the PPP poll an 11-point margin, the Public Opinion Strategies poll a 12-point margin, the Newsweek poll a nine-point margin, and the Ipsos poll a six-point margin. Are those “consistent” with the claim of a closely-divided public?
Which means Benenson’s point is this: If you take the last 12 independent polls, and you throw out four by Rasmussen, whose results the White House doesn’t like, and you throw out six others that show a wide margin of opposition, then you have two polls with results consistent with the Washington Post poll showing a fairly small margin of opposition to the Democrats’ national health care plan. And that is Benenson’s case. By the way, the headline of his article? “Most Americans want health care reform.”
