ABC‘s headline (1/30/22) is based on one polling question that gave a reason to oppose Biden’s promise and no reason to support it.
A new ABC News/Ipsos poll (1/30/22) is a poster child for what is wrong with many media-sponsored polls these days. Instead of a serious effort to measure what the public is thinking about any specific issue, the poll glides superficially across a whole range of subjects, never stopping long enough to provide understanding of any one of them—creating an illusion of public opinion that is either misleading, biased or simply inaccurate.
(In this article, I focus on just one of the 11 issues covered—what President Joe Biden should do about a Supreme Court opening. In a future piece, I will deal with the other ten issues.)
The poll asked respondents:
To fill the opening in the Supreme Court, do you think Joe Biden should:
Consider all possible nominees
Consider only nominees who are Black women as he has pledged to do
The results show 76% for all possible nominees, 23% for a Black woman.
The ABC headline announces, “Majority of Americans Want Biden to Consider ‘All Possible Nominees’ for Supreme Court Vacancy.”
The story itself notes that “President Joe Biden’s campaign trail vow to select a Black woman to fill a high-court vacancy without reviewing all potential candidates evokes a sharply negative reaction from voters.”
That’s it. There are no questions that probe how many people even knew there was a Supreme Court opening, or whether people were aware of what Biden’s promise was, or why he might have made the promise, or what people might know about the historical record of Black women serving on the Supreme Court.
For people who are clueless about the issue, the single question pitted an implicit standard of fairness (“all possible nominees”) versus what on the surface seems to be an unfair advantage to Black women. Without context, the poll results provide us no insight into what people are thinking when it comes to the historical record of racial and sexual bias, and whether/how it should be addressed.
If ABC was determined to pursue a superficial approach to this issue, its one question could have been more objective:
To fill the opening in the Supreme Court, President Biden has promised to nominate a Black woman. Do you agree or disagree with that decision, or don’t you have an opinion one way or the other?
Agree
Disagree
No opinion
That question still provides no context for the respondent, but at least it is balanced. The ABC question gives a reason why one might oppose Biden’s promise, but provides no balancing reason why one should support it. The revised question provides no reason either to support or to oppose the question.
A better revised question might be to add this qualifier after “nominate a Black woman”: “…who would be the first Black woman ever nominated.”
With either question wording, the results almost certainly would have been much different from what ABC reported.
In addition, the poll should follow up with an intensity question—whether people hold those views strongly or not. For many respondents, their opinions are simply top-of-mind, nothing they have considered seriously and thus easily subject to change.
To understand public opinion, it’s imperative to know how many Americans really care about an issue, and how many really don’t care one way or the other. ABC found that 99% had an “opinion,” though certainly many of those people were not actually engaged on the issue.
There are other ways to approach the matter. If ABC wanted to explore the public’s view in greater depth, it could have asked:
Which comes closer to your point of view:
Biden should look at all possible qualified nominees, regardless of race or gender.
Biden should nominate a Black woman for the Supreme Court, because no Black woman has ever been nominated despite many who were qualified
Or are you unsure
Again, intensity questions should follow.
In addition, the poll could have tested some pieces of knowledge after the initial question, to see how respondents might react if they knew, for example, that former presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump both promised that they would appoint a woman to the Supreme Court. Would that information have changed respondents’ opinions or not?
In short, there were several ways ABC could have explored public opinion on this issue in an objective way, had the network genuinely wanted to understand what the public was thinking. But ABC chose to ask just the one (biased) question, so it could move on to more superficial questions about other issues.
And instead of an insight into public opinion on the Supreme Court opening, ABC gives us only a partisan soundbite.
UPDATE (2/4/22): In this piece, I suggested that if ABC wanted to ask just one (objective) question about the public’s reaction to Biden’s promise to nominate a black woman for the Supreme Court vacancy, the question should ask whether respondents agreed or disagreed with his promise, or whether they had no opinion. And there should be a measure of intensity (if people felt strongly or not strongly about their response).
As it turns out, three days after the release of ABC’s results, Forbes (2/2/22) announced the results of its poll, conducted by Morning Consult, which happened to use the question wording format I suggested. And the results were diametrically opposed to what ABC announced.
Forbes’ question wording and results:
As you may know, President Biden has announced that he will appoint a Black woman to replace Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court. Do you support or oppose President Biden’s decision to appoint a Black woman to replace Justice Breyer on the Supreme Court?
28% Strongly support
23% Somewhat support
23% Don’t Know/No opinion
10% Somewhat oppose
18% Strongly oppose
Overall, 51% of registered voters supported Biden’s promise, with 28% opposed. Instead of the three-to-one negative reaction (23% to 76%) measured by ABC, Forbes’ results show almost two-to-one support.
The intensity measures also provide a useful insight into public opinion: Less than half the public feels strongly about the matter (28% strongly support, 18% strongly oppose). This is not a burning issue for most Americans.
Contrast that with ABC’s results suggesting fully 99% of the public had a strong opinion. (ABC didn’t measure intensity, but claimed that the 76% figure indicated a “sharply negative” result—as though everyone in that group had a strong opinion.)
Question wording makes a difference. Biased question wording can distort poll-produced “public opinion” beyond any plausible link to reality. The Forbes poll is plausible. The ABC poll is not.
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ABC could have framed its question like this:
“Joe Biden promised America he would nominate a black female Justice to the US Supreme Court for the first time ever. Should the President keep his promise?” (Y / N / IDK)
Notice, this framing shifts the focus to a moral imperative, “keep his promise,” something most folks are conditioned to agree with.
Also, Biden didn’t just promise unspecified others. We could have framed it as Biden ‘promised voters’, but people could interpret that as partisan — as appealing to his voter base. Instead, Biden “promised America”, thus adding a broad patriotic overlay.
As another example, recall Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.” Cue background music:”Oh beautiful, for spacious skies…” It wasn’t “Contract with My Vicious Rightwing Base,” a more accurate frame.
p.s. Thank you George Lakoff for giving us a clearer view of cognitive linguistics, framing, and embedded meanings.
or this question:
“Joe Biden pandered to the blacks and women by promising a black woman on the Supreme court. Should the President keep a promise even if the black woman may not be the best candidate?”
Apparently, all presidents before Lyndon Johnson “pandered to the white males,” since ONLY WHITE MALES were appointed to the Supreme Court prior to 1967.
BTW- You sound as aggrieved as an incel wallflower at a Sadie Hawkins dance.
Really? Give me one quote where a presidential candidate said “I’ll put a white man on the Supreme Court”
I’ll wait
Why would a white male president in the United States of America before 1967 have to say that part out loud?
Are you just daft, or do you lack the ability to interpret historical and cultural context?
I’ll wait.
You’re the one who stated that they pandered. The previous presidents nominated the best. Just what percentage of federal judges are black women? You’re going to tell me that in that tiny percentage, you’re going to find the best? Merit Uber ales.
Any person who would put forth the exaggeration that White Males completely dominated every single seat on the Supreme Court prior to 1967 because they were “the best,” is either intentionally ignorant of historical and cultural fact, or merely comfortable espousing a racist point of view that serves to legitimize White Nationalism.
There is a proven history of violent political suppression of racial minorities on this continent that extends back four hundred years, and which was significantly reduced in scope following the passage of civil rights legislation in 1965. Many problems still exist within our nation, but without that first step there would never have been a Thurgood Marshall nomination.
The Constitution of the United States created a legal terminology that defined Slaves as subhuman: they were only counted as 3/5ths of a person. That was changed in 1868, but legal recognition of the civil rights of former slaves was not universally adopted in post-Civil War America. Federal and state laws have continued to discriminate against African-Americans over the past 160 years, often in covert ways such as redlining, and Biden’s mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines in the 1994 Crime Bill.
Native Americans had no rights to hold property, unless that property was deeded to them by the U.S. Government… which it could always just take back through another coercive treaty, as often was the case.
Although they were used to track and kill other renegade tribes, there was no universal recognition of individuals as American citizens until 1924.
Some states even discriminated against women without husbands or sons up into the early 1920s, by subjecting the same political and economic disenfranchisement, that was directed against Native Americans and the enslaved prior to 1868. Women had no federally-protected right to vote until 1922, JUST ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 prohibited naturalization of any non-white applicant for citizenship in the United States. The list of targeted populations subject to discriminatory federal policies and legislation is not limited to women, Native Americans, and African-Americans. Japanese-Americans were locked up without due process in WWII. Chinese Americans were subject to racial purity laws. Dozens of other specific racial and ethnic minorities faced discriminatory legislation that was authored by White Males, and then upheld in the court system by White Males in black robes.
Cultural discrimination against any non-Protestant religious viewpoint dominated American society until the election of John F. Kennedy, and still continues to drive much of the anti-immigrant sentiment expressed by White Males in the U.S. to this day.
There is one very good reason that White Males only nominated the appointment of other White Males to the Supreme Court. The first 107 Supreme Court Justices were appointed because they were White Males. The rigged and unequal system of jurisprudence under their oversight, was intended to perpetuate the unjustifiable domination of other races and genders by White Males.
Only those who profit from such systems, view them as acceptable.
Spin this all you want, but there’s no way to make attractive a promise which offends most people’s sense of fairness. And introducing rationales into the question (“because no Black woman has ever been nominated despite many who were qualified”) is a model of tendentiously bad polling.
Just about everyone on the court is white. We have 2 Latina ladies, 1 Black man and the rest are white people. In fact—–Obama wanted a white guy, who is now the AG. But the 3 who Mitch and Trump put in are 3 white people. I would like to see a Black woman on the Court, because there has never been one. It’s about time. ( and yes, I am a white person.)
I wonder if Wondering is willing to give up her job so that a black can have it. Probably not. Is Biden willing to step down so that a black woman can be President? No. All of those bleeding hearts are always willing to put a black in a job that’s not theirs.
Merit is the only criteria that should be used for anything. Should there be 50% whites in the NBA? Nobody is crying for that. Hypocrites – all of those that are for affirmative action.
We should then put a handicapped, downs, island pacifier, transgender on next because they haven’t been represented either
So, it was purely on the basis of “merit” that the first 107 Supreme Court Justices selected… just happened to ALL be white males?
You wouldn’t be able to recognize White Privilege, if it handed you a gavel and black robe, but I’ll bet you know exactly which current member of SCOTUS repeatedly stated, “I like beer,” during their confirmation hearing.
After having read numerous conversations in multiple threads, where your proven ignorance had led to public shame, I’ve begun to wonder whether you are intellectually masochistic, or merely developmentally disabled.
Your previous use of the “downs” reference, pretty much says it all.
Sorry, I didn’t know you were downs. It’s obvious now
At what point will the Moderator finally address Tim’s hate speech?
So you’re willing to argue that Trump’s appointees were all the best choices based on merit? That’s an absurd, sad little hill to die on.
All the formulations are racist. The question should be whether the appointee should be a jurist who understands the law, applies law to facts fairly, and appreciates the importance of stare decicis if the appointee happens to be a black woman? By emphasizing color and gender the ABC and Forbes questions exclude the only characteristics relevant to a lifetime appointment to the ultimate arbiter of American justice. Such racism put Clarence Thomas on the Court. Color and gender are absolutely irrelevant.
I finally agree with John.
John Wheat Gibson, Sr.,
Are you suggesting the nomination of Clarence Thomas, was the first time in American history there was “racism” in an appointment to the Supreme Court?
Do you acknowledge that “racism” was a factor in the Democratic Part strategy to nominate Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court? If not, then why not?
Why did you fail to mention that Donald J. Trump publicly stated he would appoint a conservative female to the bench during his election campaign?
These three examples appear to disprove your closing statement. There is compelling evidence color and gender are in fact, extremely relevant within the historical and cultural context of modern political reality in this nation.
This is not about the reality YOU believe should exist, or which ideals SHOULD dominate the limited intellects of partisan senators, or even the flowery prose scribbled by wealthy white male merchants and slaveholders way back in 1787.
Any desire to resort to what should be, in order to avoid discussion of what is, merely encourages overt racists to crank up the volume of their outrage engines.
Whether or not the criteria of color and gender are appropriate may be open to discussion, but conversations of that nature simply cannot exist within a vacuum built upon false presuppositions such as yours.
You have read everything I wrote since his running? I stated then that I was against identity politics. Always have been.
Identity politics just works on little people like yourself
My previous comment was not addressed to you.