Following Up: A Learning Curve on Ukraine Polling

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CBS News, No-Fly Zone, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pew Research Center, polls, public opinion, Quinnipiac University poll, Reuters/Ipsos, Russia, The Wall Street Journal, Ukraine, Ukraine invasion, Ukraine-Russia war, YouGovAmerica

We’re getting some clarity from the – always imperfect – polls on whether Americans support direct U.S. military involvement in the Ukraine war, and the news is mostly good. Specifically, strong majorities currently reject “boots on the ground” and even the more limited no-fly-zone proposal for fear of risking nuclear war with Russia.

In other words, we know more than we did a little more than a week ago, when the Reuters news organization and the Ipsos polling concern asked respondents their views on the no fly zone, but didn’t mention the nuclear war thing in their question. That’s about as smart as asking someone whether they’d take medicine A to cure disease B without mentioning that medicine A could cause an even worse disease C.

Even weirder, the Reuters article describing the survey’s results actually pointed out this crucial omission. Just for the record, though, Reuters and Ipsos weren’t the only examples of polls completely ignoring vital context, as this YouGoveAmerica post makes clear.

But it seems that pollsters are displaying a learning curve – even in the foreign policy field in which, as the above linked RealityChek post shows, they’ve been especially clueless.

For instance, the YouGovAmerica outfit followed up its first ditzy survey on the No Fly Zone with another that – unlike its initial soundings – defined the idea (without naming it) rather than asking if people support it “without a definition.” What a concept! And once respondents were presented with the fact that American pilots shooting at Russian military planes, support fell support fell substantially.

A similar YouGov exercise for CBS News yielded much more opposition to the No Fly Zone. When it was simply mentioned by name, it enjoyed 59 percent to 41 percent backing. When respondents were told this would mean “U.S. forces might have to engage Russian aircraft, and be considered an act of war by Russia,” the results more than flipped. Sixty two percent opposed the idea and only 38 percent favored it.

Earlier this week, the Pew Research Center found that Americans opposed the United States “taking military action” in Ukraine “if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia” by 62 percent to 35 percent – a margin much wider than that in the YouGovAmerica poll.

Also this week, the polling center at Quinnipiac (Conn.) University mentioned that a No Fly Zone “would lead NATO countries into a war with Russia.” Opponents prevailed over supporters by 54 percent to 32 percent.

Interestingly, much more public caution was displayed concerning the question of whether the United States “should do whatever it can to help Ukraine, even if it means risking a direct war between the U.S. and Russia” or “do whatever it can to help Ukraine, without risking “such a direct war. The don’t-risk-war option won out by 75 percent to 17 percent.

I’ve found less information on an early March Wall Street Journal poll (including on the phrasing of the questions), but it, too, revealed meager support for direct U.S. military involvement in Ukraine. Only 29 percent of respondents backed the N0 Fly Zone, and only ten percent would “send U.S. troops” to the country.

So why did I say at the outset that the polling news was only “mostly good”? Because in my view, the shares of Americans reportedly willing to risk nuclear war over Ukraine are still alarmingly high – in the 30s and 40s percents, except for the Wall Street Journal poll. It makes me wonder whether the mere mention of nuclear war is enough to show the full potential magnitude of these positions. Maybe respondents should have to watch, for example, this movie, too.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Utterly Incoherent Polling on Ukraine

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Biden administration, fake news, journalism, NATO, No-Fly Zone, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, polling, polls, Reuters/Ipsos, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine-Russia war

Just when you think American polling can get any weirder, along comes another survey that proves me wrong.

It was a mere week ago that I called attention to surveys by Gallup and by the team-up of the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center whose questions were so mindless that they were absolutely incapable of determining Americans’ actual views on various U.S. options in the Ukraine-Russia war – and especially on the potentially (and literally) national-life-or-death matter of involving the American military in efforts to counter the Russian invasion.

Just six days later, a survey from the Reuters news agency and the Ipsos company veered deeper into cluelessness than I’ve thought possible – and deeper than I’d ever anticipated even for polling on foreign policy.

I single out the latter category throughout the decades that I’ve followed them, these surveys have routinely failed to pose questions that suggest in any way that various measures could create major costs and risks for American security and prosperity. And as made clear here and here, this incompetence can be particularly misleading and dangerous when it comes to U.S. moves that could engulf the country in a nuclear war. (Here’s one conspicuous exception.)

But yesterday’s Reuters/Ipsos poll went one big step further. Its most attention-getting result was that 74 percent of U.S. adults believe that “The United States and NATO should impose a ‘no fly zone’ above Ukraine.”

As widely recognized, a no-fly zone could well generate direct combat between the United States and Russia, and all too easily lead one or both countries to fire nuclear weapons at the other’s homeland. That’s because “imposing” the zone means sending American military aircraft into the skies over Ukraine to prevent their Russian counterparts from attacking targets in the invaded country – ranging in principle from convoys of Western military aid to fleeing refugees to Ukrainian civilian and even military targets. Maybe the Russians would keep their aircraft on the ground. And maybe they wouldn’t.

Thank goodness that the Biden administration and the NATO leadership realize how potentially suicidal that policy could be.

According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, though, nearly three-quarters of Americans disagree. That’s of course their inalienable right. But as with the previously cited findings along these lines, this response needs to be questioned because those surveyed were never told of the possible and possibly catastrophic consequences.

How do I know this? Because the Reuters reporter who wrote separately about the results actually admitted this whopping shortcoming. In the words of correspondent Jason Lange, “It was not clear if respondents who supported a no-fly zone were fully aware of the risk of conflict….” Which inevitably raises the questions “Why the heck didn’t the question mention this point,” and “Why the heck did the pollsters think that the query was worth posing in this kind of vacuum?” And if Lange (and his Reuters colleagues) knew something that Ipsos didn’t, why the heck didn’t they bring up the point before publication?

No one in their right mind would ever take seriously a book or an article or a broadcast or any piece of information accompanied by the acknowledgement, “Some of what you’re about to read or hear is worthless.” But that’s exactly what Reuters and Ipsos have in effect done.

Even more off-the-wall:  When the same survey asked respondents their views about banning energy imports from Russia, the pollsters included “even if it causes American gas prices to increase.” (For the record, 80 percent agreed and 20 percent disagreed.) Why did Reuters and Ipsos believe it was important to tell respondents that a certain policy could make it more expensive to drive their vehicles, but not that another policy could turn the entire county into glowing heaps of rubble?

So it looks like the Reuters/Ipsos poll has taken American journalism and polling a big step beyond (beneath? alongside?) Fake News.  It’s the first example I can recall of Utterly Incoherent News.  We can only hope that it doesn’t become just as commonplace.      

 

Im-Politic: What the Polls are Really Saying About Obama’s Trade Agenda

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2016 elections, CBS News, Congress, currency manipulation, fast track, Financial Times, free trade agreements, Global Trade Watch, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Jobs, Obama, polls, public opinion, Reuters/Ipsos, The New York Times, TPA, TPP, Trade, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership

I’m sure glad I’m not the Financial Times headline writer who told readers the other day that “Obama seems to be winning over public, if not Congress, on trade.” The writer blew it not because there haven’t been recent poll results containing good news for a president seeking a big new Pacific Rim trade deal and sweeping fast track negotiating authority from Congress. He or she blew it because such surveys have been showing such sharply contradictory results – as a new New York Times/CBS News sounding just reminded us. In fact, the headline was also off base in suggesting that any polls can be a reliable indicator of public on an issue like trade, which is poorly covered by the national media and partly as a result largely unfamiliar to many Main Street Americans.

As I wrote recently, the Pew Foundation findings stressed by the Financial Times contained some big apparent contradictions – chiefly, showing that Americans’ support for the idea of trade agreements keeps rising impressively, but that large pluralities believe the deals have significantly harmed the economy.

Meanwhile, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch has done an excellent job exposing the weaknesses in another recent poll – from Reuters/Ipsos – that seems downright incompetent. The survey reported majority support for “new trade deals,” but these agreements were described as seeking to “promote the sale of goods overseas.” Talk about a leading question!

In fact, as Global Trade Watch noted, a previous Ipsos trade poll found that when a specific feature of Mr. Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was included in a question (currency manipulation), nearly three quarters of Americans opposed the administration position. Moreover, that same survey showed 84 percent of the public agreeing that “protecting American manufacturing jobs” is more important than “getting Americans access to more products.”

The New York Times/CBS News results reported this morning contain more bad news for the president (and for that Financial Times headline writer). They show 55 percent to 42 percent public opposition to the president’s fast track request (which is accurately described). They show that although 78 percent of Americans have “heard or read…not much or nothing at all about the TPP (thanks, journalists!) they believe by a 22 percent to 16 percent margin that it will make fewer jobs available in the United States. (One third didn’t know or didn’t answer, and 29 percent doubted it would “make much difference.” And finally, 63 percent of respondents agreed that “Trade restrictions are necessary to protect domestic industries” while only 30 percent supported the view that “Free trade must be allowed, even if domestic industries are hurt by foreign competition.”

So for what they’re worth – and again, that’s open to big doubts – recent polls aren’t collectively sending any clear message on trade policy generally, and even muddier ones on the specific controversies Congress is dealing with today. But another body of evidence is less equivocal. As I noted in that recent post, most presidential candidates in both parties who have spoken out are running against Mr. Obama’s trade agenda. Others, especially Hillary Clinton, have conspicuously remained on the fence.

Of course, the primary voters these hopefuls will initially face are more partisan and ideological than the electorate as a whole. But candidates also know that their primary positions tend to stick with them during general campaigns. If on balance, this many professional politicians see fast track and the TPP as political losers, it’s hard to believe that they’re far off the mark.