The Washington Post makes news with its poll showing that a majority of Americans now favor the “public option”:

57 percent of all Americans now favor a public insurance option, while 40 percent oppose it. Support has risen since mid-August, when a bare majority, 52 percent, said they favored it. (In a June Post-ABC poll, support was 62 percent.)

If a public plan were run by the states and available only to those who lack affordable private options, support for it jumps to 76 percent. Under those circumstances, even a majority of Republicans, 56 percent, would be in favor of it, about double their level of support without such a limitation.

That last paragraph is pretty funny and a testament to the ability of pollsters to get any answer they want if they only phrase the question in a certain way. (By the way, you have to read pretty far down the WaPo story to find out that there is broad opposition to the suggested means of paying for the bill.)

Perhaps the oddest thing about the poll is the sample. It is 1000 adults, not registered or likely voters, so it is a sample congenial to the results that the WaPo wants to find. But the sample is also a little weird. It is 33% Democrat, 20% Republican and fully 42% Independent. Clearly GOP voters are being undersampled, but it is hard to know quite what to make of the 42% Independent number.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 5:01 am and is filed under business, Democrats, General, MSM, Polling, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.