The most recent CNN/Opinion Research poll covering October 24-26 shows that 68 percent of those surveyed said that they are "very angry ... or somewhat angry ... about the way things are going in the country today," and that 60 percent are "very scared" or "somewhat scared." CNN's web coverage and the poll report presented on Jake Tapper's show today relayed that info.
But, predictably, the poll was seriously cooked. Its 31%-21%-48% breakdown of Democrats, Republicans and independents is a sick joke. Gallup's continuously running breakdown as of mid-October, by comparison, is 29%-33%-35%, a 14-point swing from the CNN poll. So CNN's video reassurance that voters have a one-point generic ballot preference for Democrats really translates to at least a +4 for Republicans in the real world.
Especially given the poll's party skew, the finding which didn't make it into either the web or TV report is stunningly bad for the left — which explains why it remained hidden.
The poll question had to do with voter satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
Here's CNN's result, broken down by party:
Here's how CNN got to its result:
Now here is what one would have expected the result to have been if the sample had a party-affiliation makeup reflecting what Gallup found in mid-October (adding 1 percent to each column to evenly spread Gallup's 3 percent who were undecided):
The true satisfaction level is really more like 23 percent instead of 25 percent. Dissatisfaction, assuming the same "no opinion" breakdown, is more like 76 percent.
How does that compare historically? CNN/ORC's table is terribly incomplete, with an 8-year gap from 2005-2013. So here's Gallup's historical breakdown for essentially the same question:
Only two periods, the two which involved possible and actual government shutdowns, came in worse than the party affiliation-adjusted 76 percent level in the CNN/ORC survey. Though it should be noted that Gallup's results are all from Septembers and not Octobers, it's still noteworthy that CNN/ORC's adjusted dissatisfaction result is five points above where it was in 2010, and miles above other midterm year shown.
This work makes a mockery of CNN's TV report, which tried oh so hard to deliver good, or at least tolerable, news for Democrats:
It seems to me that the "anger" theme is being played up so that the press can pass off the result as an immature temper tantrum if things work out particularly badly for the left.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
