Why Intensity of Opinion is a Key Metric to Watch in the 2016 Homestretch
By David Iannelli
Few themes have been more common in this year’s presidential campaign than this one: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the least popular presidential candidates in modern history. While the campaigns and pundits grapple with the voter enthusiasm and turnout implications of this fact, the headline itself falls short of telling the whole story.
In failing to connect all of the dots available and not just the brightest ones, we missed out on a valuable predictor of the public’s collective intuition, which has been born out over the past two weeks. We could have and should have seen Trump’s precipitous decline in the polls on the horizon.
Measuring strongly held opinions
The critical piece of missing data has to do with intensity of opinion. In a typical political poll, survey respondents hear or see most of the general metrics (i.e., presidential approval, favorability and vote intention) as a multi-point scale question, typically a symmetrical Likert scale, named after its inventor, psychologist Rensis Likert. For example, when asked if they approve or disapprove of President Obama’s job performance, respondents would be asked if they strongly or somewhat approve, or strongly or somewhat disapprove.
More often than not, the media summarizes these responses when reporting survey results. For example, they will compare how many people approve versus disapprove, favor or oppose or in the case of vote intention — the two-way horse race — support Secretary Clinton versus Donald Trump.
Strong favorability ratings tell us a lot about the public’s frame of mind
“Strong” responses indicate greater commitment to a point of view and are less likely to change than modest ratings, so in taking such a shortcut, a great deal of valuable information and much of the nuance of public opinion is lost.
That’s a shame, because intensity of opinion is incredibly instructive when assessing the state of the 2016 presidential contest. A common anecdotal refrain has been that voters characterize the current election as a choice between the “lesser of two evils.” Score one for the collective intuition of the voting public. Clearly, they are onto something here in evaluating relative negativity or more simply put, intensity. But one candidate consistently suffers from significantly greater very unfavorable ratings — Donald Trump. Even one week prior to the first presidential debate in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, Donald Trump’s very negative rating was 10 percentage points higher than Hillary Clinton’s (49 percent vs. 39 percent). This gap in strongly held opinions was a harbinger of Trump’s collapse.
Identifying the base & understanding persuadable voters
Intensity of voter support is another opinion measure that will become increasingly important as we get closer to Election Day. As a follow up to the presidential ballot test in the polls, researchers will ask voters if they will definitely vote for their candidate of choice or probably vote for their candidate, but are still considering their choice. Undecided voters will be asked if they leantoward one candidate or another in an effort to differentiate the degree to which people are truly undecided.
Over the years, public opinion researchers have used the “definite” voter group as a rule of thumb for who will win the election. Vote intensity is even more important in down-ballot races as a measure of the size of a candidate’s base of support or opposition. In this case, “definite” voters are worth their weight in gold.
Important too are those voters who lie between the polar extremes. Those who are not definite in their support for a candidate are considered “soft” support or persuadable and become the group of voters who will be courted most aggressively by both camps right through to Election Day.
Clearly, intensity of opinion holds great importance, not only in understanding the state of the race, but for targeting voters who are still persuadable. The campaigns also will consider everything else related to persuadable voters, such as the issues that are most important to them, what personality attributes of the candidates are most appealing, the best ways to communicate with them and whom they see as a credible messenger for a candidate.
Intensity of opinion is even more important in public affairs campaigning than in the presidential election. Being able to identify your base of support and those who are persuadable on an issue is critical to the success of your effort.
So what can companies and organizations take away from this discussion?
Intensity of opinion is even more important in public affairs campaigning than in the presidential election for the same reason that it is important in down-ballot races. When the campaign is related to a lower-profile contest or issue, being able to identify your base of support and those who are persuadable on an issue is critical to the success of your effort. Further, those who support a candidate or institution most strongly are people who might advocate on your behalf. In the case of a down-ballot race, they are people who might contribute to a campaign, volunteer or put up a yard sign. In a public affairs campaign, they are people who might reach out to an elected official or advocate a position on social media or in their community.
Public opinion researchers ask questions using Likert scales for a good reason. They provide a tremendous amount of valuable information and nuance at a minimal marginal cost. It’s unfortunate that such a valuable indicator and measure of public intuition ends up a victim of limited column inches or air time in most of the media’s polling coverage.