Fascinating Presidential Poll Results

Fascinating Presidential Poll Results

Please Note: We are keeping this poll question open until the election to see if sentiment changes between now and then. So, if you didn't vote yet, please do it now. And even if you did vote already, please fell free to vote again. Thanks.

As you may know, our poll is not--as we say in the trade--a "national probability sample." It's not random, and it's not representative of the population of the United States. We know that visitors to this site are much more educated than the average American. Nonetheless, this more intelligent segment of the population is pretty clear in where it stands on this one.

And they ain't happy.

We asked how pleased they were with the fact that the presidential choice seems to be Bush or Gore.

The Introduction to the poll and the possible responses are shown below. (Also shown are the percentages reporting to each.)

So, it's election time again. The time when we presumably select the single person among the 260 million of us who we think is best suited to rule the world--so to speak. And who does it appear will be the contenders? George Bush Jr. and Al Gore. Which of the selections below best represents your feelings about this choice?

1. I'm thrilled. These guys are a great choice. 1.6%
2. I'm pretty satisfied. One of these two guys will probably make a good President of the United States. 17%
3. I'm a little disappointed. 12.6%
4. I'm more than a little disappointed. After all we have 260 million people to choose from. Couldn't we have done a little better than these 2 guys? 41.7%
5. I'm absolutely disgusted. You'd have to search far and wide to find two bigger losers and phonies than these two bozos. 27.1%

graph

So, the percentage who aren't too happy, i.e., from a Little Disappointed up through Disgusted--adds up to a whopping 81.4%.

Pretty sad. And too bad for you all because you're stuck with it, thanks to our great democratic process which allows such boring uncreative shallow people to rise to the top.

If You Care, Here Are The Details:

One Extreme

I thought it might be interesting to look at the 1.6% who are Thrilled with the choice of Bush and Gore and the 27.1% who are Disgusted.

Here's what I found:

The Thrilled: (Boy, who are these people? I wondered. I realize there aren't many of them, but what ARE they thinking?)

First of all there are more males than females. Of all the males who responded, almost 2% were thrilled, but just a little over a half of one percent of females were thrilled.

There was no apparent relationship related to age: all age groups hovered around the mean of 1.6 %.

Where they are from:

Where are these "thrilled" people from?

Well, the top three states containing people who ain't thinkin' too straight are: (Drum roll)

Number One--Mississippi. With a whopping 8.3 % (more than 5 times the national average) who are thrilled with these two Bubbas.

Number Two--Idaho. 4.4%

Number Three--New Mexico. 4.3%

Mississippi was never on my top ten list of places to visit, but, given this response, I think I'd have to recommend that we all stay as far away as possible. After all, if 8% of the intelligent population don't get it I'd hate to bump into the "others" on a dark and stormy night.

On the other hand, if you're driving across the country I'd definitely recommend the northern route going through Pennsylvania (only 0.3% Thrilled), Minnesota (0.5 %)--and be sure to start or end up in Oregon (also 0.5%)

If these three states are out of your way here's a map to help you navigate across the country. The states shown in red are the ones to definitely stay away from. They all had percentages of "Thrilled" people substantially above the national average of 1.6%. Those states shown in green are the ones that will be safe to drive through--substantially lower than 1.6% Thrilled. The states in yellow are around the national average so you may be taking a chance if you break down in the wrong part of town.

map

And at the Other Extreme

The Disgusted: At the other extreme are the people who are genuinely (and justifiably--In My Humble Opinion) Disgusted. The specific wording related to this choice was, "I'm absolutely disgusted. You'd have to search far and wide to find two bigger losers and phonies than these two bozos."

Overall, 27.1 % of respondents chose this statement. The males and females were about the same--both around this average. But, when Paul Murky looked at the correlation with age he found this. The chart below shows the percentage of each age group that made this "Disgusted" choice,

So what conclusion(s) would you like to draw from this? That older people are more intelligent? Or they have better antennae for phonies? Or they're more intolerant? Or just curmudgeons and don't like anyone or anything? Or they wish they had Teddy Roosevelt to vote for--again?

And Where Are They from?

The top three states where people are Disgusted are:

Rhode Island: 64.3% Wow! New Mexico: 38 % New Hampshire: 37.5 %

Oh, you noticed that New Mexico is on this list of Most Disgusted AND on the top three list of Most Thrilled? Isn't that interesting? Suggests some serious polarization. Anyone know anything about the people of NM? Can you corroborate this?

Those with the lowest percentage of Disgusted people are:

Kentucky: 15% Tennessee: 16.5% Mississippi: 16.7

Mississippi and Tennessee are right there where you'd expect them to be, but Kentucky beat them out for first place.

A Closer Look at Texas And Tennessee

Thought you might be interested in how the Texas and Tennessee voting breaks down. Here it is:

chart

Boy, I don't know what to make of this. Do you? The percent Thrilled is much higher in Texas, suggesting that--well you know what it suggests. On the other hand, the percent Disgusted isn't as low in Texas as it is in Tennessee suggesting that there aren't as many wackos in Texas as we may have thought. Hard to believe.

And Who Are They Planning to Vote For?

OK, already, I know the headline here is not grammatically correct. I was going to write, "And Whom Are They..." but it sounded so pretentious; and it ends with a preposition. Then I tried, "And For Whom Are They..." But that sounded silly. So, at the risk of possibly offending my friend Fran and all other English teachers, I decided to go with the grammatically incorrect version above. My apologies.

So who ARE they voting for?

chart

I assume the "Other" vote is mostly going to the "Two Zeroes in '00." And since it looks like the more intelligent people are in favor of Gore, it's almost a certainty that he doesn't have a snowball's chance.

Thanks for taking part in the poll--if you did. And whether you did or not, it's not too late. We'd like to see if there's a change in sentiment as voting day gets closer. So, we're going to keep the same question here until voting time.

If you didn't vote, please do it now.

And if you already did, vote again.

You may feel differently now. (And It's in keeping with our slogan of "vote early and vote often.")

Thanks again. We do address the "Burning Issues of our Time," don't you think?

Show me the poll results archive.