Command Post sheds light on misleading poll
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Pew Research Center's press release titled "Public Confidence in War Effort Falters" grabbed much media attention with a dramatic graph, which showed a huge drop for "How well is the war going?"--from a high of 71% on Saturday to a low of 38% on Monday. The big drop was for those who responded "very well." Compounding Pew's spin, the Associated Press (copied by most other media) shortened "very well" to "well" without including the next response category.
Wrong. Pressing the PRC for more detail, I found that in fact, the opposite was true. When you include those who responded fairly well, favorable public opinion on the war's progress increased --from 80.1% Thursday to 85.3% Monday.
Raw Percents for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday:
Very well - 49.9, 70.9, 70.7, 51.6, 38.1
Fairly well - 30.2, 22.8, 22.2, 34.3, 47.2
subtotals - 80.1, 93.7, 92.9, 85.9, 85.3
(Above detail was provided to me directly by Peyton M. Craighill at Pew.)
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