Welcome to the Pollapalooza, our weekly poll roundup.
The Poll(s) by the end of the week
How do you hold an election during a pandemic? Most states are encouraging voters to cast their ballots by mail this November, to avoid spreading the coronavirus, and some of them are revising their election laws to make that easier.
Under normal circumstances, as many as 34 states (plus Washington, D. C.) have been allowed to the people to vote absentee for any reasonthem , including the five that conduct vote-by-mail elections by default (i.e., every voter is automatically mailed a ballot). But as of Thursday, at least 41 states are allowing anyone to vote absentee this fall, including seven states and Washington, d.c., that will mail to voters ballots for the by-default. That leaves approximately 54 million eligible voters across the nine states, who must provide an excuse to vote absentee this fall though, that some of those states may still change their laws before the Election Day.
And a new poll out this week found ” for the American people, largely of supportive efforts to expand absentee voting. According to the The Pew Research Center’sAnd 65 percent of adults said that any voter should be able to cast their vote early or absentee without an excuse. In addition to this, an additional 14 percent thought a documented reason should be required, but that COVID-a 19 ” should count as one of the reasons. As a result, only 19 percent of Americans believed that the voters should need an excuse other than the pandemic to vote absentee.
However, the as on so many other issues, Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on this. While a whopping 83 percent of Democrats supported no-excuse absentee voting (and another 11 percent thought COVID-a 19 ” should be a valid excuse), and only 44 percent of Republicans thought so. Another 17 percent thought COVID-a 19 ” should be an acceptable excuse, but that still left 37 percent of Republicans believing voters must provide a non-pandemic-related excuse to vote absentee.
You might be tempted to chalk up this split to the President Trump’s recent rants against voting by mail. And according to another poll released this week from the ABC News/the Washington Post, 78 percent of Trump’s supporters-see the mail-in voting as “vulnerable to significant levels of fraud.” (It’s not.) But absentee-voting access-have you actually long been a partisan issue, and The party splits in the Pew poll were very similar in October of 2018. (That said, the one Republican in opposition to no-excuse absentee voting has grown-a-bit since then.)
However, just because voters want the option to vote absentee that doesn’t mean they’ll actually do it. The ABC News/Washington Post poll also found that 59 percent of Americans would prefer to vote in person in this year’s election, while 38 percent would prefer to vote by mail. And there were stark differences along demographic lines, which could put heightened stress on our democracy this November.
For instance, Republican respondents told ABC News/Washington Post, that they ‘ preferred to vote in person, 79 percent to 20 percent. But Democratic respondents preferred to vote by mail, 51 percent to 46 percent. That could mean that the votes cast in person will skew toward Republicans this fall, while the mail-in votes skew toward Democrats. And since the in-person votes, and are typically reported at first on election night, that could mean that the initial results on Nov. 3 it will be overly favorable to the Trump — perhaps causing him to claim victory prematurely. But He could actually turn out to be the winner days after the Election Day, in this scenario, the mailed ballots are counted, and the Democratic votes are added to the till. This could cause a national crisis if the Trump decries those hits counted ballots, the fraudulent or if I have refuses to grant.
In addition, the poll found that college-educated and wealthier voters were more comfortable voting by mail. Specifically, respondents with postgraduate degrees they said they preferred voting by mail, 54 percent to 44 percent; those with just a four-year college degree were split 49 percent to 49 percent. Respondents with less than four years of college, they said they preferred to vote in person, or 59 percent to 37 percent) and respondents with a high school diploma or less have opted for in-person voting 68 percent to 29 percent. As a result, the underprivileged voters could be disproportionately affected if the pandemic forces the closure or of the loans of the polling places this November, either putting them at heightened risk of contracting COVID-19 while waiting in line or disenfranchising them altogether.
The Other entered in bytes
- According to the The Kaiser Family FoundationWith 60 percent of parents with schoolchildren wanted the schools to-wait-to-restart-in-person classes, while only 34 percent wanted the schools to reopen sooner. This preference was largely driven by parents of color, 91 percent of whom were worried that their child will catch the COVID-19 if the schools reopen. Only 55 percent of white parents shared that concern.
- The The Morning Consult poll found that the vast majority of Americans — 72 percent — supported mandating face masks in public spaces, in their state, and imposing penalties for those who refused to do so). Despite perceptions that wearing a mask has become a partisan issue, even Republicans supported the policy, that is, 58 percent to 35 percent.
- According to another part of the The ABC News/Washington Post polla record 69 percent of Americans said that they think that white and nonwhite people do not receive equal treatment in the criminal justice system; and only 26 percent said they do receive equal treatment. The Black respondents have long held this view in the ABC News/Washington Post poll, but for the first time, so did the majority of the white people.
- The evidenced by the fact that Opening Day was yesterday (four months late), this year’s Major League Baseball season will look a little different from the usual. Most obviously, the season will only have 60 games, down from the standard 162 — but it will still crown a World Series champion. According to the The Morning Consult, though, that, of the plurality of fans think the year 2020 champion, deserves an asterisk. Forty-four percent of baseball fans said that winning the World Series in the shortened season will be less meaningful than winning, after a full regular season, while 35 percent believed it would be just the meaningful. In reality, a 60-game season isn’t that much worse at abstract in Portuguese objective: the objective of the team”s true talent than the 162-game-season — but-is-neither’s perfect.)
Trump’s approval
According to Genesis Brand”s presidential approval tracker, 40.3 percent of Americans approve of the job the Trump is doing to the president, while 55.6 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -15.3 points). At this time last week, 40.3 percent approved, and 55.6 percent disapproved (the net approval rating of -15.2 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 41.0 percent and a disapproval rating of 55.3 percent, for a net approval rating of -14.3 points.
The Generic ballot
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 8.2 percentage points (49.4 percent to 41.2 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 8.3 points (49.0 percent to 40.7 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 8.2 points (48.7 percent to 40.5 percent).
Check out all of the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 election.
