Every week, John Zogby grades the performance of President Barack Obama for U.S. News and World Report. Read the full report card by clicking on the quote below.

Paul Uncategorized

We like to think of the American people as a source of wisdom and common sense that, if listened to, will find solutions to our great challenges. That has been true when the people find consensus, something which is now sorely missing.

People want to reduce our national debt and put Americans back to work, but our polling finds we have very little agreement about how to achieve either or about how to resolve the conflicts that come with trying to do both. The gridlock we find in Washington is a reflection of the people’s basic disagreements.

Read all of John Zogby’s article at Forbes.com.

Paul Uncategorized

Welcome to this week’s edition of Top Question Tuesday. Last week’s winning question asked about firing all staff as a way to improve a school.  Once we have results from the question we’ll post them on our blog.

This week’s user-submitted survey questions are below. The questions are shortened to save space on our blog post, but these are the basic ideas. Take a look through the questions and then vote for the question you’d most like to see on a Zogby Interactive survey. As a reminder, if you’d like to submit a question to be considered for a Top Question Tuesday Zogby survey, use the “Top Question Tuesday” box on the right of the page. And if you’d like to join Zogby’s interactive panel to answer questions similar to these, click here.

1. “Birthers” are those who have doubts about President Obama’s birthplace or eligibility to serve as President. Which of the following best represents your opinion about birthers and their relationship to the Republican party?

a. The Republican Party should bring birthers into the Republican mainstream and
publicly raise  questions about Obama’s eligibility

b. The Republican Party should work to distance itself from birthers and state
that concerns about Obama’s eligibility are not valid

c. Other/not familiar enough to judge/not sure

2. Do you plan to follow any NCAA tournament basketball while at work?

3. Do you believe that recent examples of natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, are isolated events or part of overall larger changes to existing weather patterns?

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Katy Uncategorized Top Question Tuesday

In a recent Zogby Interactive survey of adults nationwide, respondents were asked about their most and least favored members of the Obama administration. The top three most unpopular members are Rahm Emanuel (27%), Timothy Geitherner (18%) and Eric Holder (13%). The top three favorites are Hilary Clinton (24%), Joe Biden (13%) and Robert Gates (10%).

A breakdown of the results by ideology shows somewhat different results. Among the liberals, the most favored member is Hilary Clinton (32%), followed by Joe Biden (27%); the least favorite is Timothy Geithner (32%) followed by Rahm Emanuel (14%) in a distant 2^nd place. About 30% of the liberals chose “none of the above” to the “least favorite” question.

Among the conservatives, Emanuel received 39% of the votes as the least favorite, followed by Eric Holder (24%). As to the most favored, 57% of the conservatives chose “none of the above”, followed by Robert Gates at 18% and Hilary Clinton at 14%.

Among the Independents, Rahm Emanuel (22%) and Timothy Geitherner (19%) again top the list of the least favorite, while Hilary Clinton (34%) leads Joe Biden by almost 20 points as the most favored member.

What do you think of the results? Are they what you expected them to be? Who are your most/least favored members? Why?

Grace Uncategorized

We know that people are mad as hell about their tax dollars going to bail out big banks and Wall Street, and then seeing the recipients of their hard-earned cash rewarding themselves with million-dollar bonuses.

We also know that the blowback from the bank bailouts is one reason why incumbents, especially the majority Democrats, are in great jeopardy of losing their jobs in November. People can’t vote out big bankers, but we are finding evidence that some people are voting with their bank accounts and moving their business to community banks and credit unions. A recent Zogby Interactive poll found 9% of U.S. adults have taken some of their business away from big banks as a protest.

Read all of John Zogby’s column at Forbes.com.

Paul John Zogby, economics

Monday morning Matt Drudge used a curious headline -“Obama Approve/Disapprove Reach Parity”  – to link to the RealClearPolitics Average, which now shows the President with a 48% approval rating and a 47% disapproval rating.  To us, this revelation was far from shocking; it is the extension of a trend we have seen emerging as far back as this past August.

Our interactive polling began to show the President’s predicament not long after the healthcare town hall events finished unsettling the usually calm Washington August.  Since that time, his standing among political independents has fluctuated from a low of 36% to a high of 47%.  And with every dip in the President’s support among independents, his overall approval has followed.

The RealClearPolitics average itself first dropped below 50% at the end of November of last year and has shown the parity of the President’s approval fairly consistently over the past several months.  But when you look at the RealClearPolitics chart, you may notice something missing.  Though our interactive tracking polls for the past 6 months align with the trend shown by the polling average, our interactive results are not included in the data set.

RealClearPolitics is not alone in failing to report our interactive methodology, though the number of outlets dismissing this methodology grows fewer every day.  News outlets who hold fast to a belief in the telephone only world of polling miss the chance to seize on a new and better source of public opinion — the increasing number of Americans who are moving into the online world in droves and who go there to voice their opinions.

For those who wonder about the track record of our interactive they need look no further than our performance in the 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections.

So while many pollsters continue to argue that the landline telephone is the only true polling methodology available, doubling down on a technology that grows more obsolete by the day gives new meaning to the word foolhardy.  Rather than place the same foolish bets, we invested in developing new technologies and new methodologies like our Zogby Interactive polling, which allows us to keep our finger on the pulse of the new interconnected and interactive America.

There will be those who bemoan internet based polling and will rant about methodology issues until they have exhausted all available oxygen in the room, but for all the shouting in the world one fact remains –internet-based polling will be a vital part of the future.  And while no one methodology is perfect, having spent the past decade refining our interactive panel of nearly 500,000 respondents, we can say that the view from the head of this trend is a good one and we look forward to the day when the rest of the industry catches up.

ZogbyFeaturedContributor Uncategorized Obama, polls

Welcome to this week’s edition of Top Question Tuesday. Last week’s winning question asked about the effectiveness of Census advertising.  Once we have results from the question we’ll post them on our blog.

This week’s user-submitted survey questions are below. The questions are shortened to save space on our blog post, but these are the basic ideas. Take a look through the questions and then vote for the question you’d most like to see on a Zogby Interactive survey. As a reminder, if you’d like to submit a question to be considered for a Top Question Tuesday Zogby survey, use the “Top Question Tuesday” box on the right of the page. And if you’d like to join Zogby’s interactive panel to answer questions similar to these, click here.

1. Recently a Rhode Island school district fired all its high school staff because of their students’ poor grades and high dropout rate. Do you agree or disagree that this is an effective method for improving a school?

2. President Obama recently held a bipartisan healthcare summit with Congressional Democrats and Republicans. Do you believe that such summits are likely to result in new legislation and changes to existing legislation, or not?

3. Do you agree or disagree with the Pentagon’s decision to allow officers, troops, and civilian leaders in the military to blog and use social networking site?

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Katy Uncategorized Top Question Tuesday

Every week, John Zogby grades the performance of President Barack Obama for U.S. News and World Report. Read the full report card by clicking on the quote below.

Paul Uncategorized

This is a tale about coffee, tea (parties), marketing and politics. The latter two have always been kindred pursuits. Selling a candidate or a product both involve building trust, brand loyalty and appealing to both our baser and higher needs.

Also, like a business, politicians and parties must decide whether they want to profit from niche or mass markets. A business can do well selling good old black coffee in small-town America, or aspire to the Fortune 500 by selling a variety of coffees nationwide. A politician may be perfectly happy as an ultra-conservative congressman from rural Kentucky, or tack to the middle and run for president. Now let’s talk about  Dunkin’ Donuts, Democrats, Republicans and the Tea Parties.

Read all of John Zogby’s article a Forbes.com.

Paul Uncategorized

In the wake of Ron Paul’s straw poll victory at CPAC, Glenn Greenwald has resurrected the theory that it is the Ron Paul faction of the GOP “that spawned and sustains the “tea party” movement.”

That theory is not unreasonable. The intensity, the radicalism and a strong interest in the Founding Fathers and Revolutionary era are certainly common ground for both Ron Paul supporters and the tea party movement.  Add to that a resentment of corporatism and international institutions and a search for the uncorrupted public servant and it seems only natural that tea partiers should turn to Dr. Paul.

However, tea partiers sit in stark contrast to Ron Paul supporters when it comes to one of the major themes in Ron Paul’s policy: the blowback theory of terrorism and foreign relations.

According to this theory, there is a clear causal connection between the terrorist attacks on the United States and America’s foreign policy (and more specifically Middle East policy).  Much of Paul’s other policy proposals depend on this theory: if military adventures cause terrorism, a lower military expenditures would not only help curb the growing national debt, but a reduced military presence would also make Americans safer.  Also, one would not risk much by trying suspected terrorists in civilian courts and disrupting secret intelligence collection: if foreign policy is fixed, the danger of terrorism will be greatly diminished and the need to obtain intelligence and deter terrorists would be much smaller.

The political problem for people like Paul and Greenwald is that tea parties emphatically do not believe in this theory.  According to our data, only 8% of tea party supporters – compared to 21% overall – believe that the main cause for terrorism is U.S. support for Israel or death and damage caused by the U.S. military.  Only 12% think that damaged caused by U.S. military is a factor at all – compared to 34% of likely voters. Conversely, over 80% of tea party supporters think that the main cause of terrorism is either making Islam the world’s dominant religion or the resentment of Western power and influence.

This huge difference was illustrated during Glenn Beck’s recent interview of Debra Medina, a candidate for Texas governor and ideological ally of Ron Paul.  Neither Medina nor Paul endorse or espouse 9/11 conspiracy views. However, neither do they show the same visceral revulsion that people like Glenn Beck – and, one would guess from our data – a great majority of tea party supporters, have in reaction to 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Devoted Ron Paul supporters know that they are different from tea partiers.  If one visits Ron Paul activist hubs such as Liberty Forest, ambivalence about the tea partiers is palpable.  One also finds very critical views of such tea party mainstays as Glenn Beck and Marco Rubio.

As a rule, Ron Paul had trouble breaking 10% in the Republican primaries. Tea partiers’ current popularity is comparable to that of the major parties.  This is either due to a real difference between them or to some sort of massive misunderstanding.  We think that the former is much more likely.

Zeljka ideology, politics