Category: Polls

Death Penalty Whumps Joe Biden

by · Nov 18, 2021 1:14 pm

Gallup has two contrasting polls out today.  One shows President Biden’s approval rating at 42%.  On crime, it’s lower than that (39% approval to 57% disapproval); perhaps citizens are not real thrilled with his Attorney General’s denominating parents as “domestic terrorists” if they voice dissent at school board meetings.

Gallup’s other news release is about its annual  death penalty poll, showing approval at 54%, which, Gallup notes, “is essentially unchanged from readings over the past four years…”

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Reality Can’t Be Hidden Forever

by · Oct 30, 2021 6:14 pm

The headline in today’s Washington Post story is:  “In a setback for Black Lives Matter, mayoral campaigns shift to ‘law and order’.”

Yes, it’s all true.  When violent crime surges, the public demands protection.  Who woulda thunk it?

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Asking the Correct Question in a Death Penalty Poll

by · Aug 17, 2021 8:33 pm

I have long been critical on this blog of the way major polling organizations phrase their questions on the death penalty. Professors Joseph Bessette and Andrew Sinclair of Claremont McKenna College have done it right. They have this article at Real Clear Policy explaining their work and results. The full technical report is here. (Hint: no one familiar with my prior posts will be surprised at the results.) Continue reading . . .

Alarm About Violent Crime Is Now America’s Lead Issue

by · Jul 13, 2021 2:22 pm

For years, the Left’s complacency about crime has tried to disguise itself by claiming that it’s really the norm of mature thinking, and that the problem is the “fear” and “hysteria” of those of us who think complacency is a foolhardy and dishonest response.

As has become undeniably evident in recent months, however, even well disguised complacency isn’t going to work anymore.  The country is  headed into its second year of an unprecedented surge in murder (and yes, the correct word is “murder,” not “gun violence”).  The question is whether this will come to a head in the mid-term  elections now less than 16 months away.

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Biden Tanks as Violent Crime Rises

by · Jul 2, 2021 1:12 pm

The Washington Post, ever tooting the horn for President Biden and his pet project of more gun control, nonetheless apparently sees itself as forced to cover some of the uncomfortable truths about surging violent crime, what the public wants to do about it, and what the President says he wants to do about it.  (What he’s actually done, so far as on-the-ground results show, is nothing).

The Post’s headline is, “Concern over crime is growing — but Americans don’t just want more police, Post-ABC poll shows.”

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Crime and Homelessness Driving Out San Francisco Residents

by · Jun 29, 2021 10:01 am

Mark Calvey of The San Francisco Business Times has this story discussing a survey of City residents measuring their overall concerns about their environment. The article states the following:

Amid sharply rising concerns about crime and quality-of-life issues, 44% of respondents to the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce’s annual CityBeat poll say they intend to leave the city in the next few years. The CityBeat survey found that homelessness and “street behavior” is a top concern for 65% of respondents, with crime and open-air drug-dealing a top concern for 46%. Longstanding problems facing San Francisco residents — housing affordability and cost of living — were far behind, cited as top concerns by 19% and 10%, respectively. 

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Pew Research Has Big News on the Death Penalty

by · Jun 3, 2021 12:14 pm

Here are the opening paragraphs of this story, reported by the NYT:

For the first time in almost half a century, support for the death penalty has dipped below 50 percent in the United States.

Just 49 percent of Americans say they support capital punishment, according to a Pew Research Center poll … That represents a seven-point decline in about a year and a half. Support peaked at 80 percent in 1994.

The death penalty has had majority support among Americans for 45 years. The last time support was as low as it now stands was in 1971.

Not good news for the folks on my side of the issue.  But wait, there’s a catch.

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Perceptions of Police Shootings of Black Men

by · Apr 13, 2021 3:21 pm

A police shooting of a black man  —  clearly unjustified in this instance  —  and the reaction to it, are once again in the news.  The nature and extent of the reaction got me curious about what people actually believe about the frequency of such episodes.

As it happens, this has been studied.  The Skeptic Research Center found that, among people who view themselves as “very liberal,” more than half think the number of unarmed black people killed by the police in one year (2019) was roughly 1000 if not more.  Almost eight percent of that cohort thought the number was in excess of 10,000.

How close is that to the truth?

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Americans Oppose Defunding the Police by 3 to 1

by · Mar 9, 2021 4:05 pm

Three times as many Americans oppose defunding the police as support the notion, according to a recent Ipsos/USA Today poll. Sarah Elbeshbishi and Mabinty Quarshie have this report in USA Today.

Support to redistribute police department funding has decreased among Americans since August after a summer of protests had erupted across the country against racial injustice and police brutality, a recent Ipsos/USA TODAY poll found.

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