Gallup overstates its Obama daily tracking poll
December 09, 2009 9:26 am ET by Eric Boehlert
WH spokesman Robert Gibbs caused a small media ripple this week when he was asked Monday about Gallup's daily tracking poll which showed the president down three points to 47 approval rating. (On Tuesday, Obama was back up to 50 percent.)
On the company's site, Editor in Chief Frank Newport posted a response to Gibbs' mild swipe at Gallup's never-ending Obama polling data, and Newport himself raised several interesting points about the nature of polling. But this one seemed a bit off-course, as Newport oversold the significance of the daily tracking numbers:
But keeping tabs on the people's views of their elected representatives between elections is vitally important - and something in which the people of the country are demonstrably interested.
It's vitally important to know how Americans feel about Obama each and every day of the year? That seems like a stretch. (The nation seemed to manage prior to Gallup's non-stop presidential polling.)
But I thought this was even more off the mark:
Obama is set to travel to Oslo, Norway, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The White House is probably just as interested as we are in how the American public is going to react to this event. Our tracking will give us the answer -- both in the short-term and in the long-term.
Baloney. What the Gallup numbers will do during the days when Obama travels to Norway is measure the percentage of Americans who approve of the job he's doing as president. Period. Nothing more and nothing less. The notion endorsed by Gallup--that from the extremely vague job approval questions that we can extrapolate how Americans (in this instance) view Obama's Norway trip--doesn't really make much sense. If Gallup commissioned a poll and specifically asked Americans about Norway, then sure, we'd get some insight.
But assuming that because the job approval rating question is asked when Obama is in Norway that respondents will give their answer based solely on the fact that Obama is in Norway, again, makes no sense.
And my guess is that that's the larger point Gibbs may have been trying to make on Monday, which is that the press' obsession with Obama's daily tracking numbers (an obsession, BTW, that only kicks in when the numbers inch downward) is off-base because journalists read way too many things into the generic question. Just like Frank Newport does when he claims that we'll know how Americans feel about Obama going to Norway.
Not by looking at the daily tracking poll numbers we won't.
They are a daily tracker and all pollsters, including Gallup, will tell you that they measure trends and should not be taken out of context each & every day because daily trackers are not smoothed to take into account outliers & anomolies.
Yet, the moment that Obama dropped below 50%, Gallup shot out TWEETS and were rewarded with immediate Politico & Drudge links.
Then when Obama dropped to 47%, they posted another Gallup.com report, quickly picked up by Ben Smith, Drudge and Foxnews.com.
So Gallup seems to have caught to this link sharing, click-thru revenue generating concept online pretty quickly.
BTW, Obama shot back up 52% on Sunday and 50% yesterday.
But where are the headlines on Gallup, Politico or Drudge stating that ???
Funny, I seem to recall when Bush was president how vitally important it was for the media to know how Americans felt about him every day? Is your memory really that short, or does it only matter when you dislike the president?
That's a statement, not a question. Fix the punctuation and you'll earn more respect. You'll earn even more if you stop talking drivel. Absolutely no one performed or advocated performing daily polling on Bush.
Is your memory really that short, or does it only matter when you dislike the president?
It's your memory that's short, if it works at all. Go away and try again on a thread where you actually understand the topic.
"Absolutely no one performed or advocated performing daily polling on Bush."
I seem to recall Keith Olberman announcing Bush's low poll numbers on a nightly basis. Are you going to tell me he didn't? Chris Mathews didn't?
I know, I'm just a stupid redneck right?
What if someone you knew kept asking you every day "so what do you think of President Obama now?"
They'd ask you on Monday, then ask you again on Tuesday "so what do you think now", and again on Wednesday "what now", and Thursday and Friday "how about now", right on through the weekend, just to start again on Monday "what do you think of the President now, today?"
Imagine someone doing that from day one of the Obama administration, EVERY DAY DAY AFTER DAY!
You'd do one of at least two things: you have punched the annoying idiot's lights out long ago just to be shut of the noise, or you'd ask him "what the falk are you doing, are you pretending to be a pollster or something, trying to justify your stupid and worthless existence, DAY AFTER DAY, EVERY DAY?"
They did no such thing...they just provided the information and you can do with it what you want as Frank Gallup clearly stated:
-- Gallup reports presidential job approval using a three-day rolling average. Users are, of course, free to make whatever use they would like of the daily tracking information. The same pertains to their use of daily stock market reports, daily Nielsen ratings of television shows, or any other frequent measure.
For those interested in trends over a longer period than the three-day average reported daily, Gallup aggregates job approval on a weekly basis and reports weekly demographic breakouts. --
The daily numbers reflect the longer trend that is in play right now for Pres.Obama...his approval numbers are fading fast.
According to Gallup's tracking from the first of the year to the present...Obama is clinging to his liberal base that is down slightly from 87-82. He is getting clobbered by moderates, who have fallen from 73-55...and conservatives 46-27.
And that's not good news for Pres.Obama...regardless of the whistling-in-the-dark protests from Boehlert, Gibbs, etal.
If they really want to know how the public feels about it, they can ask how they feel about.
He overstated 2 things:
1. The meaning behind people's responses
2. The daily ebb & flow of the results
For example, what Gibbs was referring to is that one day Gallup had Obama @ 52%. The very next day, he was @ 47%.
That is a DAILY TRACKER and needs to be smoothed before firing off TWEETS and Gallup.com "Obama is tanking" reports.
Obama's popularity is doing just fine.