Beware of Media Concerns: Using Poll Data to Track Partisan Movements

By Jeff Stonecash

The events never seem to stop. In August we had the issue of whether Hillary’s followers would find healing and reconciliation at the Democratic convention. Then there was the Democratic convention and the issue of whether Obama was too grand in his speech. Then we had the Republican convention, the issue of how to include or not include George Bush, and the emergence of Sarah Palin. Then there were two weeks of media focus on her as the media explored her background and possible impact on the election. That was shoved aside by the crisis in financial institutions, and the intrigue of how the parties would respond to a request for a $700 billion bailout proposal. As all these events unfolded the horserace fluctuated and there was steady concern with how these events were moving the horserace.

Campaigns have to cope with these events and sometimes responding consumes a great deal of energy. But campaigns are also focused on moving specific voters to their side, and while the horserace sometimes heartens them and other times unnerves them, the concern of campaigns is identifying and bringing to them the voters they think they can win. The crucial role of polls and tracking is to provide feedback on whether the campaign is connecting with its base and moving them to the candidate.

Partisanship and Bringing Them Home

Partisan voting has increased in recent years as we continue to sort out the electorate. The Republican Party has been seeking to attract conservatives and the Democrats liberals. Each party also has moderates and the Democrats even have some conservatives. The concern of each campaign is to bring their partisan supporters to their column. While various events and all the media coverage of them occur, the crucial matter that campaign pollsters track is whether they are succeeding. The following graph indicates what a campaign looks for and what is happening in this year’s presidential race.

The chart uses data taken from the Gallup Poll’s weekly aggregation of poll results. Each day Gallup asks over 1000 registered voters for their candidate choice. They also ask them if they identify with the Republican or Democratic Party or are Independent, and whether they regard themselves as liberal, moderate or conservative. From this it is possible to classify registrants as conservative-Republicans, liberal/moderate-Republicans, Independents, etc. For each of these groups the simplest concern is how much of an advantage the candidate has within the group. To assess this I arbitrarily chose a focus on McCain and calculated his advantage within each group.

For the August 4-10 compilation, McCain won conservative-Republicans 91-5, or he had an 86 point advantage within that group. The goal of the campaign is to win the support of those most likely to support the candidate. The same is true for Obama.

The question is how, amid all the events of the last two months, whether the campaigns are making progress, or are the events creating erratic movements? The results show that each campaign is succeeding. McCain has steadily increased his advantage among those who identify as Republicans. Obama is also succeeding, though with some fluctuation among conservative-Democrats. McCain’s advantage among Democrats has become steadily more negative, indicating Democrats are steadily moving to Obama.

Events appear to be having less disruptive impact on the movement of partisans to support their candidates than we may presume. The messages of campaigns, even in a crowded media world, appear to be working to bring partisans home. The first task of each campaign, mobilizing its base, is occurring. While the horserace gets a great deal of attention, the campaigns are focusing on using poll data to track whether they are attracting their partisan supporters. There is a crucial and major concern with attracting Independents, but that is a separate and later topic.

Jeffrey Stonecash is professor of political science at Syracuse University and the author of Political Polling: Strategic Information in Campaigns.

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