Last week, KING5 aired a story on Washington State’s forthcoming 2022 United States Senate race, which could very likely evolve into a general election matchup between Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican challenger Tiffany Smiley, who enjoys the backing of the Washington State Republican Party.
The story revolved around a poorly conceived poll question asked of Washingtonians by pollster SurveyUSA on KING5’s behalf between April 29th and May 5th, which was worded as follows:
United States Senator from Washington Patty Murray was first elected in 1992 and plans to run for a sixth term next year. Do you think Patty Murray should? Or should not? Run for a sixth term?
31% of respondents to the survey said Murray should run again, while 47% said Murray should not run again. 22% responded that they were not sure. Five hundred and forty-one registered voters participated.
As you might expect, the Washington State Republican Party wasted little time in turning the KING5 story into a pitch for money to their email list. The email, attributed to Chair Caleb Heimlich, began with these lines:
Did you see the latest poll from KING5?
Only 31% of voters think Patty Murray should run for re-election — and with less than eighteen months until the midterm elections, that means we have a golden opportunity to defeat the Democrat [sic] incumbent and help Republicans take back majorities in Congress!
After thirty years in D.C., Patty Murray has lost touch with the people of Washington State and is in lockstep with the radical agenda of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
What “radical agenda”? Expanding healthcare and worker protections for American families? Investing in badly needed infrastructure improvements and port security? Putting college within reach of more people? Combating child poverty? Ensuring veterans get the support and care that they need?
Those are just a few of the priorities that Senator Murray has focused on as a United States Senator throughout the last few decades.
Our research shows that they’re priorities shared by the people of this state.
It’s true that Murray has represented Washington since 1992, which is a long run, but that doesn’t mean she’s out of touch like Republicans claim.
Contrary to what Heimlich’s email says, this poll finding is not evidence that Murray is vulnerable in the 2022 midterms. That’s because the question was not neutrally worded. Accordingly, it cannot possibly yield any valid data.
There’s a saying in tech that speaks to the problem of worthless data: garbage in, garbage out. If your inputs are bad, then your outputs will also be bad.
To understand why this question is bad, let’s first look at the phrasing again:
United States Senator from Washington Patty Murray was first elected in 1992 and plans to run for a sixth term next year. Do you think Patty Murray should? Or should not? Run for a sixth term?
Upon first glance, it might not seem like there’s anything wrong with this question. It consists of a statement naming Murray and identifying her by her title, stating when she was first elected (1992) and noting that she is running for reelection. Then the question part of the question is posed. All factual.
Neutrality and factuality aren’t the same thing, however. A poll question can consist entirely of facts and still not be neutral. That’s the case here.
The facts are presented without any context and the question itself is not one that any of the respondents would ever actually be tasked with answering in real life.
Let’s consider the actual question first, replete with its three question marks (Do you think Patty Murray should? Or should not? Run for a sixth term?)
Running for office is a very personal decision, and it’s not one that millions of voters — like the five hundred and forty-one included in this survey sample — get to make. Rather, it’s a decision that is made individually by people who aspire to serve their state and country, usually with the advice of family and friends.
Murray has already made that very important decision to run again, which entails a lengthy commitment to continued public service of six years. The relevant question for voters is not whether she should run but whether she should be reelected. That’s the decision Washingtonians get to make in 2022.
Now, let’s talk about what the statement part of the question connotes and what it leaves out. Context is really important, and there’s a lot of context missing here.
Pretty much every biography of an elected representative out in the public domain provides their name, their office, and what year they were first elected to that office because those are considered essential facts. But while those facts are common to political biographies, they are not the extent of them.
By selectively presenting just a couple of facts about Murray (she was elected in 1992, plans to seek a sixth term next year) KING5 created an ageist question with an anti-incumbency frame, whether that was their intention or not.
The aforementioned results are thus to be expected. It can be assumed that the content of the question influenced the responses to the question.
Then there’s what was left out.
There’s no discussion of Murray’s actual record as a Senator, and no mention of any of her accomplishments, which could fill a book. There’s no mention of her priorities and what she’ll offer as a candidate for the Senate in 2022.
Due to its poor construction, the question absurdly invites respondents to view Murray’s lengthy tenure negatively, when in fact, in the United States Senate, seniority and length of service is a huge advantage… and arguably the biggest of advantages with respect to how much clout a senator can wield.
Washingtonians have benefited for years from Murray’s experience and proven abilities as an appropriator. What’s more, Murray serves in a key leadership position in the Senate Democratic caucus and is a committee chair once again now that the Democratic Party has a bare working majority in the Senate.
Speaking of bare working majorities, KING5’s question also doesn’t invoke the larger political and electoral landscape, which is of paramount importance to most voters in this highly polarized era of American history.
As is common knowledge, the Senate is currently evenly divided, fifty to fifty, between the Democratic Party and its independent allies and the Republican Party.
Next year’s Senate race will be as much about the balance of power in the Senate as it will be about Murray and whoever becomes her general election opponent.
Murray’s reelection is crucial to the Democratic Party’s prospects of retaining a Senate majority after the midterms. The Democrats can’t afford to lose a Senate seat in a blue state. Since the Washington State Democratic Party is united behind Murray, there will be no credible Democratic opposition to her candidacy.
(I can say that very confidently as a longtime Democratic activist and current member of the Washington State Democratic Central Committee!)
The choice in 2022 will thus be between Murray and a Republican loyal to Donald Trump, most likely the WSRP’s recruit Tiffany Smiley, as mentioned earlier.
It is uncommon for pollsters to offer all of the context I just talked about in a survey because it would result in lengthy questions that could easily still fail to be neutral. The usual approach to sizing up a candidate’s prospects in a future election is to offer a simple hypothetical matchup that identifies the likely candidates and their party affiliations, and then asks the respondent’s opinion.
This approach presumes the respondents already have an opinion based on their political knowledge and leanings. In a high profile partisan race such as next year’s contest for United States Senate, they usually do.
If a respondent doesn’t know anything about one or more of the candidates, they can still offer an opinion based primarily on the candidates’ party affiliations.
Perhaps SurveyUSA did ask such a question for KING5… but if they did, they have not released it. You can see that the only question that is in the release is the one I reproduced above. SurveyUSA has been doing quite a bit of polling for KING5 lately, but there are no other released questions about the U.S. Senate race.
In polling, as in so many other things in life, less can be more.
As I explained, KING5 and SurveyUSA left so much about Patty Murray’s record and the 2022 environment out of their question. Why didn’t they just leave out everything except for the bare essentials needed to ask a neutral question?
We know from research done by linguists and cognitive scientists that words are like flags: they evoke ideas and feelings. The use of a particular word or set of words will activate a particular frame in the mind of the reader or listener.
For a question to be neutral, it has to be worded in a way that will prompt the respondent to voluntarily supply their own opinion.
We can look at the problematic construction of KING5’s question from another angle by utilizing a hypothetical. Let’s suppose that voters in Central Washington were to be asked the following question about Dan Newhouse by SurveyUSA:
United States Representative from Washington’s 4th Congressional District Dan Newhouse voted to impeach Donald Trump and plans to run for another term next year. Do you think Dan Newhouse should? Or should not? Run for another term?
Like KING5’s question about Patty Murray, this question consists of nothing but facts. It is a fact that Dan Newhouse is a member of Congress representing the 4th District. It is a fact that he voted to impeach Donald Trump. And it is a fact that he has filed to run for reelection with the Federal Elections Commission.
Despite being factual, the question is not neutral and would not yield any useful data concerning Newhouse’s political future were it to be asked.
Again, for a question to be neutral, it has to be worded in a way that it will prompt the respondent to supply their own opinion. We’re not going to find out what voters in central Washington really think about their current United States Representative if we ask them the hypothetical question I just constructed above.
At NPI, one of our maxims is the answers you get depend on the questions you ask. It’s one of the most important truisms in politics. You’ll find this statement in dozens of Cascadia Advocate posts going back years.
I fully expect the Republican Party to go on touting this invalid poll finding as evidence that Murray is vulnerable in 2022. That may suit Democrats just fine, however. Democrats have long enjoyed celebrating Patty Murray victories after listening to endless conceited Republican predictions of Murray’s demise.
Seattle Times comment threads prior to the November 2010 election, for example, were chock full of Republican readers convinced Murray’s career was over. Of course, it wasn’t. Murray has never lost reelection, and no credible observer thinks that’s likely to happen in 2022.
Republicans can dream, but history suggests that when the fall of 2022 rolls around, Washington voters will return Patty Murray to the Senate.
One Ping
[…] Republicans have recently been trumpeting the results of a survey conducted by SurveyUSA for KING5 as evidence that Murray is vulnerable in 2022. The survey contained a question asking voters whether Murray should or should not run for a sixth term (a plurality responded in the negative). I explained why this question was problematic and the results therefore worthless earl…. […]