This is not meant to be a political post although I am using numbers from a political poll. According to the Gallup Daily approval rating, the estimated proportion of people who "approve" of the job US President Trump is doing is 37% whereas 57% have expressed "disapproval." The stated margin of error is 3%. If these numbers are 3% low, then it all works out: 40 + 60 = 100. If they are 3% high, then not so much: 34 + 54 = 88. Or if one is high and one is low, or the 57 and 37 reflect the "truth," then this poll accounts for 94%. What is going on with the other 6 -12% of people?
I am also curious as to what makes up "approval" and "disapproval." Are these the typical questions that people call "Likert-type," with adjectives like "somewhat" and "strongly?" If so, it looks like some category collapsing is going on to get to these two points. If not - if it is a yes/no question as presented, I am a little surprised that the gap is not larger than 6 - 12%. I did look at the Gallup website but was not able to find the poll questions (although one is able to sign up for a daily trend email, or look at daily trends from past presidents.) In the end, however, as a mixed methods researcher, I think it would be a lot more helpful for me to know what information accompanies these numbers. Website reporters tend to present the trend as "resulting from" whatever has just happened (e.g., Twitter activity; international travel, etc.), yet the Gallup numbers are a rolling daily average, and people do not all access the same information at once - the internet provides a more "on demand" environment than television news, so I am not certain that these numbers are all that sensitive to the most recent events. I wonder what other comments people make who respond to these telephone polls..... (Sorry for all of the quotes in this post - it looks like Dr. Evil dictated it!) (Art created with Skywriting 1.1 for Mac; the setting is Columbus, OH)
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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