Americans Say Iraq War Not Worth It

[wilheim]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A majority of U.S. voters now say it was not worth going to war in Iraq and feel the United States is getting bogged down there, according to a Los Angeles Times poll published on Friday.
In the survey of 1,230 registered voters conducted across the country from Saturday through Tuesday, 53 percent said it was not worth going to war in Iraq while 43 percent said it was and 4 percent said they did not know. The sample has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The paper said the survey was the first time one of its voter surveys found a majority of voters doubting whether the situation in Iraq was worth the United States going to war there.

In a March L.A. Times survey 53 percent of voters said the war was worth fighting and 43 percent said it was not, a reverse of the current figure.

The paper said that 35 percent of American voters thought the United States was making good progress in Iraq while 61 percent said the country was getting bogged down there.

But 52 percent of voters said that they thought the United States was winning the war in Iraq and less than one in four said the insurgents were winning.

Despite a growing sense that the war was not justified, voters did not advocate a quick pullout of Iraq.

Less than 20 percent said America should withdraw its troops within weeks. Seventy-three percent said that there should be no specific date for withdrawal because disorder and civil war could result.

Fifty-five percent of voters said they disapproved of President Bush's handling of the war, while 44 percent approved.

 

[Shotgun]

This 'poll' questioned 13% more Democrats than Republicans. Why should we take what they say seriously?

 

[JayHarn3]

where's this 13% you say?

 

[Shotgun]

From the Kaus files on Slate:

"The LAT Does It Again: Matthew Dowd, Bush's pollster, blasted the latest LAT poll (showing Kerry up 7) as a "mess." Specifically, he noted in an email sent to NBC and ABC that

Bush is leading independents by three, ahead among Republicans by a larger margin than Kerry is ahead among Dems, and we are down by seven. Outrageous. And it gets worse. They have Dems leading generic congressional ballot by 19. this means this poll is too Democratic by 10 to 12 points.

Who's right? Ask Governor Gray Davis! O.K, thats a cheap shot. But LAT-watchers have been skeptical of the Times Poll ever since it alone showed Davis closing to a virtual dead heat in the recent California gubernatorial recall--a report that virtually everyone else (including rival campaigns and the rival Field Poll) scoffed at. I've been told, however, that Times polling director Susan Pinkus is a straight shooter, so I did the irresponsible thing and postponed sniping while I called her up. [Don't let this happen again--ed] Here's what I learned:

--The party breakdown in the LAT poll was 38 % Democratic, 25% Republican, 24% Independent. That's about the same as the 38/19/26 breakdown of a year ago, but it's a big increase in Democrats since March of this year, when they were only 33 percent of the sample. Pinkus argues her latest numbers are not that different from a recent ABC poll that she said showed Democrats with a 37/27 percent edge. And she says her overall horse-race result isn't much different from the latest Gallup poll, which had Kerry up 6 in a three-way race. (That was among "likely" voters. The Times surveyed "registered" voters--and Gallup only had Kerry up by 3 in that broader group.)

--On the gigantic Democratic generic Congressional-preference lead in her survey, Pinkus said, "I don't know what's happening with that. If that's true, it's huge. ... I've seen it 5 or 6 points, but never 19, it's true." She said she stood by her poll, however. (Earlier she had noted that one out of 20 polls will be wrong, given the accepted margins of error.)

--Other commentators (such as RCP's T. Bevan) have hung their critique on Bush's much better showing in the Times' separate, more intense look at three battleground states. Can Bush really be losing nationally by 6 points and still be winning Missouri by 11 points? Seems unlikely. One possible explanation: The Times apparently used a different telephoning outfit to conduct the state-by-state polls than it used for the national poll. Might not something in the different survey techniques of the two firms have skewed the results in two directions? "I don't know. I can't answer that. That's a legitimate question," said Pinkus. If there is a difference in the results of the two survey techniques--even using the exact same questions--then which technique is more accurate? Maybe the Times' technique really does skew results to the left, no? (That would explain a lot!) Or its subcontractor's technique might skew results to the right. It could be something very simple. If--speaking hypothetically--all the Times' phone surveyors were Latinas with exacting NPR-style Spanish accents, those surveyed might try to please them by appealing to their assumed Democratic leanings. They might get a different result than would a survey conducted by men with thick Southern accents and gruff manners. One group would get it wrong.

P.S.: Note that the generic Congressional result was also much more "normal"-- and much less pro-Democratic (6-8 points instead of 19)--in the three "battleground" states surveyed by the subcontractor. Why would Missouri, Wisconsin and Ohio all happen to be almost equally less pro-Democratic than the nation as a whole? Or is the difference really a difference in the techniques of the subcontractor that did the "battleground" state surveys?

Does Pinkus plan to post the LAT's methodological numbers, as requested by ABC's Note? "Not at this time ... I guess I could but I haven't thought about it." She points out that she has given ABC a response to Dowd's charges. (Check The Note tomorrow.)

[This message was edited by Shotgun on June 11, 2004 at 06:35 PM.]

 

[kayaman+]

"This 'poll' questioned 13% more Democrats than Republicans. Why should we take what they say seriously?"

First of all there are people that would normally vote dem that actually support this war and there are some that usually vote repub that do not.

Secondly I think I remember some repubs fabricating evidence to serve as motivation for getting into this conflict, why should we take what repubs say seriously?

 

[Shotgun]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by kaya man:
"This 'poll' questioned 13% more Democrats than Republicans. Why should we take what they say seriously?"

First of all there are people that would normally vote dem that actually support this war and there are some that usually vote repub that do not.

Secondly I think I remember some repubs fabricating evidence to serve as motivation for getting into this conflict, why should we take what repubs say seriously?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Kaya, believe this poll all you want. If you want to beleive in Santa Claus as well, no one will stop you. It is a statistically flawed poll. A simple understanding of statistics or an ounce of common sense will tell you that.

 

[wilheim]

From Boston Globe:

The poll, which was conducted from Saturday to Tuesday, surveyed 1,230 registered voters nationwide. It had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Forty-one percent approved of Bush's handling of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, while 37 percent disapproved of his performance.

A majority of voters said presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry has done little to help: The poll found that 34 percent said Kerry has not offered a clear plan to handle the war, while 15 percent said he has. The other voters said they didn't know.



Doesn't sound like a biased poll to me.


wil.

 

[wilheim]

WASHINGTON – President Bush is losing ground with the American public in how his leadership rankings, but in a head-to-head matchup with Democratic rival John Kerry, he remains in a dead heat, according to the latest Christian Science Monitor/TIPP poll.
In the nationwide poll of 1,003 adults, taken June 1-6, Bush suffered across the board losses in his presidential leadership ratings, posting an all-time low in the Christian Science Monitor/TIPP Poll's Presidential Leadership Index. That reading dropped from a slightly positive 51.8 in May to slightly negative 47.3 in June; 50 represents a neutral view
Still, among the 834 registered voters polled, Bush leads a three-way field of presidential candidates, with 43 percent of the vote. Senator Kerry gets 41 percent and independent candidate Ralph Nader wins 7 percent. A month ago, Bush led by 1 point. Currently, in a two-way matchup against Kerry, Bush leads 45 percent to 44 percent.

"We may be at a crossroads, where people may not be totally approving his performance but still preferring him for president, because of growing concerns over national security," says Raghavan Mayur, president of TIPP.

A shift in the major issues

The poll tracks registered voters' concern about six issues, and among those six, national security gained while the Iraq war, the economy, and healthcare lost slightly.

The other two issues, job market and civil liberties, each gained slightly. While job creation continues apace and the US moves to hand over control of Iraq to the Iraqis on June 30, those issues are fading in importance, Mayur says.