KING5 releases another useless, pointless job performance poll of state leaders
This afternoon, Seattle NBC affiliate KING5 released another one of their useless polls purporting to measure how the public feels about lawmakers' job performance (and Governor Chris Gregoire's, as well). It pretty much goes without saying that the poll found people to be unhappy with Washington's elected leaders, a sentiment echoed by Governor Gregoire herself when asked about her reaction to the poll.
What's baffling to us is why KING5 wastes money commissioning these polls from SurveyUSA in the first place. Why do the people who run the station feel the need to quantify how Washingtonians feel about the Legislature's work? The numbers are absolutely useless. They don't tell us anything we don't already know.
It's simply not a secret that people are feeling sad, angry, upset, frustrated, annoyed, and anxious about the state of our state.
They're out of work, or they can't find the money to pay for college, or they have no idea how to pay for the medical care a sick family member needs. Or they're worried about their friends and neighbors.
Most people don't pay close enough attention to what's happening in Olympia to be able to effectively evaluate the job the governor and legislators are doing. What little people do know tends to get filtered through traditional media outlets like KING5, which do a lousy job of providing fair and in-depth political coverage. (And no, a half hour show on Sundays featuring consultants and conservative pundits does not qualify as fair and in-depth political coverage).
We don't need a poll on state leaders' job performance to tell us Washingtonians are unhappy. So what good are polls like these? Seriously. There's just no point to them. They don't suggest how people are likely to vote when they get their ballots later this year. If KING5 wanted to obtain numbers on how people might vote in November in legislative contests, it could commission an electoral poll.
We at NPI are fond of saying that the only poll that really matters gets conducted on Election Day. All we have to do is look at recent electoral history to see how truly irrelevant "job performance" polls like this one are.
In spring 2005, as Dino Rossi's gubernatorial election challenge was being litigated in Chelan County Superior Court, Governor Chris Gregoire and the Legislature were working to pass a transportation package to make Washington's roads safer and smoother. The legislation was a top priority for Gregoire.
The package had hardly been signed into law before a right wing initiative was filed to repeal it. Shortly thereafter, a SurveyUSA poll found that 58% of Washingtonians disapproved of the job Gregoire was doing, while only 34% approved. (That's not far off from the poll released today, which puts Gregoire's approval at 31%).
Initiative 912, spearheaded by KVI's John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur (the latter was fired from KVI last year) ultimately topped the minimum requirement for valid signatures with ease... and made the ballot. Tim Eyman jubilantly predicted victory; the conventional wisdom was that voters would torch the gas tax increase and take out their anger on Gregoire. But they didn't.
Instead, they defeated the initiative by a comfortable margin.
That same legislative session, the Legislature and Governor Gregoire acted to restore the state estate tax, which had been struck down by the Supreme Court. The following year, thanks to Martin Selig's money, right wing activist Dennis Falk qualified a measure to repeal it, asserting that Gregoire's action was deeply unpopular. Falk had the support of editorial boards; Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen in particular campaigned desperately for Initiative 920's passage.
But it was rejected overwhelmingly.
Besides rejecting I-920, the people also substantially enlarged the Legislature's Democratic majorities. For example, the 45th and 48th LDs, which collectively span the north Eastside, each went from having one Democrat in its delegation before the 2006 election to having an all-Democratic delegation.
Two years later, voters had the opportunity to choose between Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi for a second time; they decisively chose Gregoire, even though Rossi's allies spent millions on advertising and attack mail to convince them otherwise. Voters also kept both the House and the Senate under Democratic control.
And last year, the right wing tried to force a public vote on the domestic partnerships expansion that the Legislature worked very hard to pass. But instead of gutting the law, voters sustained it. They also overwhelmingly rejected Tim Eyman's Initiative 1033, intended to lock in recession era budget cuts.
What do the outcomes of all of these elections suggest? They suggest that when push comes to shove, the people of Washington trust the governor and Democratic lawmakers, and support their efforts to protect our common wealth.
Much has happened in the past five years, but the people (for the most part) have been sending a remarkably consistent message at the real polls.
It's possible that we could see a change this year. But job performance polls of state leaders are not a good indicator of whether voters are of a mind to oust the Democratic majorities in the Legislature in November 2010.
What's baffling to us is why KING5 wastes money commissioning these polls from SurveyUSA in the first place. Why do the people who run the station feel the need to quantify how Washingtonians feel about the Legislature's work? The numbers are absolutely useless. They don't tell us anything we don't already know.
It's simply not a secret that people are feeling sad, angry, upset, frustrated, annoyed, and anxious about the state of our state.
They're out of work, or they can't find the money to pay for college, or they have no idea how to pay for the medical care a sick family member needs. Or they're worried about their friends and neighbors.
Most people don't pay close enough attention to what's happening in Olympia to be able to effectively evaluate the job the governor and legislators are doing. What little people do know tends to get filtered through traditional media outlets like KING5, which do a lousy job of providing fair and in-depth political coverage. (And no, a half hour show on Sundays featuring consultants and conservative pundits does not qualify as fair and in-depth political coverage).
We don't need a poll on state leaders' job performance to tell us Washingtonians are unhappy. So what good are polls like these? Seriously. There's just no point to them. They don't suggest how people are likely to vote when they get their ballots later this year. If KING5 wanted to obtain numbers on how people might vote in November in legislative contests, it could commission an electoral poll.
We at NPI are fond of saying that the only poll that really matters gets conducted on Election Day. All we have to do is look at recent electoral history to see how truly irrelevant "job performance" polls like this one are.
In spring 2005, as Dino Rossi's gubernatorial election challenge was being litigated in Chelan County Superior Court, Governor Chris Gregoire and the Legislature were working to pass a transportation package to make Washington's roads safer and smoother. The legislation was a top priority for Gregoire.
The package had hardly been signed into law before a right wing initiative was filed to repeal it. Shortly thereafter, a SurveyUSA poll found that 58% of Washingtonians disapproved of the job Gregoire was doing, while only 34% approved. (That's not far off from the poll released today, which puts Gregoire's approval at 31%).
Initiative 912, spearheaded by KVI's John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur (the latter was fired from KVI last year) ultimately topped the minimum requirement for valid signatures with ease... and made the ballot. Tim Eyman jubilantly predicted victory; the conventional wisdom was that voters would torch the gas tax increase and take out their anger on Gregoire. But they didn't.
Instead, they defeated the initiative by a comfortable margin.
That same legislative session, the Legislature and Governor Gregoire acted to restore the state estate tax, which had been struck down by the Supreme Court. The following year, thanks to Martin Selig's money, right wing activist Dennis Falk qualified a measure to repeal it, asserting that Gregoire's action was deeply unpopular. Falk had the support of editorial boards; Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen in particular campaigned desperately for Initiative 920's passage.
But it was rejected overwhelmingly.
Besides rejecting I-920, the people also substantially enlarged the Legislature's Democratic majorities. For example, the 45th and 48th LDs, which collectively span the north Eastside, each went from having one Democrat in its delegation before the 2006 election to having an all-Democratic delegation.
Two years later, voters had the opportunity to choose between Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi for a second time; they decisively chose Gregoire, even though Rossi's allies spent millions on advertising and attack mail to convince them otherwise. Voters also kept both the House and the Senate under Democratic control.
And last year, the right wing tried to force a public vote on the domestic partnerships expansion that the Legislature worked very hard to pass. But instead of gutting the law, voters sustained it. They also overwhelmingly rejected Tim Eyman's Initiative 1033, intended to lock in recession era budget cuts.
What do the outcomes of all of these elections suggest? They suggest that when push comes to shove, the people of Washington trust the governor and Democratic lawmakers, and support their efforts to protect our common wealth.
Much has happened in the past five years, but the people (for the most part) have been sending a remarkably consistent message at the real polls.
It's possible that we could see a change this year. But job performance polls of state leaders are not a good indicator of whether voters are of a mind to oust the Democratic majorities in the Legislature in November 2010.
# Posted by Andrew : 4:21 PM
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