Public Opinion Paradox

Majority of Americans want to preserve or strengthen Obamacare!

The source contrasts this headline with another account of the same poll, but the other headline and underlying breakdown are not included here. A headline alone may hide important differences among respondents. The poll watcher who aspires not to be wrong has to test each of the poll’s options, to see whether it might break down into different-colored pieces. Fifty-six percent of the population disapproves of President Obama’s policy in the Middle East? That impressive figure might include people from both the no-blood-for-oil left and the nuke-’em-all right, with a few Pat Buchananists and devoted libertarians in the mix. By itself, it tells us just about nothing about what the people really want.

Elections might seem an easier case. A pollster presents you with a simple binary choice, the same one you’ll face at the ballot box: candidate 1, or candidate 2?

But sometimes there are more than two. In the 1992 presidential election, Bill Clinton drew 43% of the popular vote, ahead of George H. W. Bush with 38% and H. Ross Perot at 19%. To put it another way: a majority of voters (57%) chose someone other than Bill Clinton. And a majority of voters (62%) chose someone other than George Bush. And a really big majority of voters (81%) chose someone other than Ross Perot. Not all those majorities can be satisfied at once; one of the majorities won’t get to rule.

That doesn’t seem like such a terrible problem—you can always award the presidency to the candidate with the highest vote tally, which, apart from Electoral College issues, is what the American electoral system does.

But suppose the 19% of voters who went with Perot broke down into 13% who thought Bush was the second-best choice and Clinton the worst of the bunch,* and 6% who thought Clinton was the better of the two major-party candidates. Then if you asked voters directly whether they preferred to have Bush or Clinton as president, 51%, a majority, would pick Bush. In that case, do you still think the public wants Clinton in the White House? Or is Bush, who most people preferred to Clinton, the people’s choice? Why should the electorate’s feelings about H. Ross Perot affect whether Bush or Clinton gets to be president?

I think the right answer is that there are no answers. Public opinion doesn’t exist. More precisely, it exists sometimes, concerning matters about which there’s a clear majority view. Safe to say it’s the public’s opinion that terrorism is bad and The Big Bang Theory is a great show. But cutting the deficit is a different story. The majority preferences don’t meld into a definitive stance.

If there’s no such thing as public opinion, what’s an elected official to do? The simplest answer: when there’s no coherent message from the people, do whatever you want. As we’ve seen, simple logic demands that you’ll sometimes be acting contrary to the will of the majority. If you’re a mediocre politician, this is where you point out that the polling data contradicts itself. If you’re a good politician, this is where you say, “I was elected to lead—not to watch the polls.”

And if you’re a master politician, you figure out ways to turn the incoherence of public opinion to your advantage. In that February 2011 Pew poll, only 31% of respondents supported decreasing spending on transportation, and another 31% supported cutting funding for schools; but only 41% supported a tax hike on local businesses to pay for it all. In other words, none of the main options for cutting the state’s deficit attracted majority support. Which choice should the governor pick to minimize the political cost? The answer: don’t pick one, pick two. The speech goes like this:

“I pledge not to raise taxes a single cent. I will give municipalities the tools they need to deliver top-quality public services at less cost to the taxpayers.”

Now each locality, supplied with less revenue by the state, has to decide on its own between the remaining two options: cut roads or cut schools. See the genius here? The governor has specifically excluded raising taxes, the most popular of the three options, yet he can present his firm stand as having majority support: 59% of respondents did not support that tax increase, though this does not necessarily mean they explicitly opposed it. Pity the mayor or county executive who has to swing the axe. That poor sap has no choice but to execute a policy most voters won’t like, and suffers the consequence while the governor sits pretty. In the budget game, as in so many others, playing first can be a big advantage.