Three Minnesota Constitutional Amendment Polls

Back on February 3rd SurveyUSA, polling for KSTP, released a poll and I completely missed it for six days. So now, like a magazine that's been in the bathroom for a week, the corners bent and it's content exhausted, I'll finally bring it out for inspection.

The folks at SUSA asked about one constitutional amendment that's already on the ballot and two that seem like they're destined for that same fate.

SurveyUSA (2/3, 11/8 in parenthesis, 5/25 in brackets):

"An amendment to the Minnesota Constitution on the ballot defines marriage as between one man and one woman, will you vote..."

For	47	(46)	[51]
Against	39	(40)	[40]
Not vote	10	(10)	[8]
Not sure	4	(4)	[2]

(MoE: ±4.3%)

This issue has essentially stabilized over the last six months, with amendment supporters holding a small but consistent ~4 point advantage in the average of polls. SurveyUSA though is the only pollster who has given respondants the option of not voting for the amendment and they find 10% who utilize this option.

Those not votes, by people who cast a ballot, will count the same as no votes so it's tempting to simply lump them together and say that the amendment is actually losing slightly 49-47.

Unpacking the Odds and Ends

Last week PPP released the last set of data from their recent foray into Minnesota. The "Odds and Ends" release, as PPP refers to it, contains a lot of interesting data that is worth unpacking. So that's what I'm going to do. Right now in fact.

PPP (1/27, 6/1 in parenthesis):

"Do you approve or disapprove of Governor Mark Dayton’s job performance?"

Approve 53 (51)
Disapprove 34 (38)
Not sure 13 (10)
(MoE: ±2.8%)

Mark Dayton is proving himself to be a capable and likable Governor and these numbers reflect that. PPP's write up of the poll sums it up nicely:

Mark Dayton's numbers have improved since PPP last polled Minnesota in May and he's one of the most popular Governors in the country. 53% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 34% who disapprove. That +19 spread is up 6 points from May when he was at +13 (51/38). Dayton has near unanimous approval from Democrats (85/5), is very strong with independents (51/33), and even has a decent amount of support from Republicans (19%). Dayton's 53% approval ties him for the 8th highest out of more than 40 sitting Governors PPP has polled on.

It's been since Arne Carlson that a candidate for Governor in Minnesota received more than 50% of the vote in an election. Of course we'll have to see what happens with the stadium and how that moves the needle.

Speaking of the stadium, PPP asked about that as well:

Yet another poll on the anti-family amendment

Around this time each year St. Cloud State University does a statewide poll and this years version featured a question about the anti-family amendment.

SCSU (11/12, no trend lines):

"Should the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one
woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?"

Yes 44
No 47
Don't know/refused 9
(MoE: ±5%)

This result runs contrary to the two polls from last week, by the Star Tribune (PSRA) and KSTP (SurveyUSA), who both found outside the margin of error leads for the amendment. And other than a PPP poll at the end of May that showed the amendment losing by a single point this is the only poll with the "one man, one woman" language to show the amendment losing outright.

If we simply average the three latest polls we get this; 43% do not support the amendment and 46% do. This leaves 10-11% in the undecided/don't know category. It's that 10% who will decide the fate of the amendment.

Another poll shows the anti-family amendment winning

On Tuesday I posted about the Minnesota Poll and it's findings vis-a-vie the anti-family amendment, which were discouraging to say the least. Right on the heels of that comes a SurveyUSA poll showing basically the same result, Minnesota voters favoring the amendment by a handful of points.

SurveyUSA (11/8, 5/25 in parenthesis, 3/31 in brackets):

"If an amendment to the Minnesota Constitution were on the ballot, that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, would you vote..."

For	46	(51)	[62]
Against	40	(40)	[33]
Not vote	10	(8)
Not sure	4	(2)	[5]

(MoE: ±4.3%)

This somewhat mirror's the Strib's 48-43 result in favor of the amendment. The big difference though is that SurveyUSA gave people the "not vote" option, of which 10% availed themselves.

If people actually voted this way next November the amendment would fail. This is because for an amendment to the Minnesota constitution to pass it needs to receive 50% + 1 of the entire electorate. Meaning not voting on the measure is as good as voting no.

The other thing you can see is that actual support for the amendment has eroded quite a bit since SurveyUSA's first poll of the issue at the end of March, going from 62% support, to 51% to 46% now. Opposition to the amendment hasn't risen at the same level as support has fallen, meaning that many people who at first supported the amendment have moved into the "Not vote" and "Not sure" categories.

Like in the Minnesota poll though, there are a substantial number of Democrats, 26% in this case, who are in favor of the amendment while only 58% are opposed. This will simply not do if we want to beat this thing.

Minnesota Poll: the anti-family amendment makes big gains

There's no way to really sugar coat this one, since last time PSRA was in the field in Minnesota opposition to the anti-family amendment has softened by twelve points and support has increased by nine.

StarTribune (PSRA) (11/8, 5/13 in parenthesis):

"Would you favor or oppose amending the Minnesota Constitution to allow marriage only between a man and a woman?"

Favor 48 (39)
Oppose 43 (55)
Don't know/refused 8 (7)
(MoE: ±4.4%)

It's hard to say exactly what happened since May that would result in opposition going from plus sixteen points to minus five, but this certainly helps to illustrate the uncertainties of polling ballot questions, especially this particular ballot question.

[Note: I missed it at first, but the question wording is different from the May poll to this one and that is almost certainly what is driving the results.]

Looking at the cross-tabs the changes come from some expected and some unexpected places. Back in May the 65+ cohort actually opposed the amendment, 51-44, now that same group is in favor of the amendment 70-26. This is a preposterously large swing and may be the root of the dramatic topline swing.

About that State Fair poll

Yesterday, The Big E went over the results of the State Fair poll on the Anti-Family Amendment as it pertains to the task ahead.

Today, I will use the same poll to point out the uncertain nature of the outcome of that task and why organizing will be the key to winning.

First, though, the results of the poll, conducted by the Minnesota House of Representatives, one more time.

"Should the state constitution be amended to define marriage as "only a union of one man and one woman?" This question will be on the November 2012 ballot."

Yes 29.8%
No 66.5%
Undecided 3.7%

What you see is that unlike with normal polls, this poll has no margin of error (but it has insignificant digits!). That's because it's actually not a poll at all, it's a straw poll.

There are two key differentiating factors between the State Fair poll and a poll from, say, Gallup; the nature of the sample and weighting.

At the State Fair anybody can just walk up and take the poll. In a traditional survey every effort is made to get as random a sample as possible. And by random I mean everyone who makes up the sample frame should theoretically have as equal a chance of being a respondent as anyone else.

Additionally, even though you go to every effort to get as random a sample as possible, the final result is often a little different from the actual demographics of the sample frame. To alleviate this, pollsters will weight their samples based on immutable characteristics like age, gender and race. The State Fair poll doesn't do any of these things.

So, the State Fair (straw) poll violates two of the most fundamental aspects of traditional public opinion polling, but just because it's a completely unscientific survey doesn't mean we can't do a little bit of analysis right?

PPP splits the difference

This is the third poll in the last three weeks that has asked Minnesotan's about the Marriage Discrimination Amendment. The first, the StarTribune's Minnesota Poll, showed Minnesotan's opposed to the amendment 55-39, the second, from SurveyUSA, showed Minnesotan's in favor 51-40 (51-48 if the "not vote on the measure" group is applied to the oppose column).

If you do some simple math and average those results you get 47.5% opposed to the amendment and 45% in favor, which is almost exactly the results that PPP got in their new poll.

PPP (6/1, no trendlines):

"Should the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota?"

Yes 46
No 47
Not sure 7
(MoE: ±2.9%)

So even though these three polls are all over the map, there is some consistency in their inconsistency.

SurveyUSA polls the Marriage Discrimination Amendment

SurveyUSA had their polling robots calling Minnesotan's on the 23rd and 24th, the robots came back with these results.

KSTP (SurveyUSA) (5/25, 3/31 in parenthesis):

"If an amendment to the Minnesota Constitution were on the ballot, that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, would you vote..."

For the amendment 51 (62)
Against the amendment 40 (33)
Not vote on the measure 8
Not sure 2 (5)
(MoE: ±4.3%)

While the topline numbers are not great, the trendlines are. In just a couple months the For side has gone from a +29 spread to a +11 spread, an incredible 18 point drop. Additionally, if you add the "Not vote on the measure" group to the Against group (since not voting on the amendment is just as good as a no) it gets narrowed down to a 3 point advantage.

So even though the top line numbers of this poll look ugly, I would make that case that it's actually good news. The problem for supporters of the amendment is that people will vote on it a year and a half from now and the thing that helps our side the most is time.

To illustrate that point here's the breakdown by age (For/Against):

65+ 66/27
50-64 52/40
35-49 51/37
18-34 42/50

The more old people who stop voting and the more young people who grow into voting age the more support our side has. It's that simple.

Iowa Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban

From the Des Moines Register:

The Iowa Supreme Court this morning unanimously upheld gays' right to marry.

"The Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution," the justices said in a summary of their decision.

The court rules that gay marriage would be legal in three weeks, starting April 24.

With that Iowa will become the first Midwestern state to allow gay marriage. Or will it?

"The decision made by the Iowa Supreme Court today to allow gay marriage in Iowa is disappointing on many levels," State Senator Paul McKinley, the Republican leader, said in a statement on The Des Moines Register's Web site. "I believe marriage should only be between one man and one woman and I am confident the majority of Iowans want traditional marriage to be legally recognized in this state."

He added: "Though the court has made their decision, I believe every Iowan should have a voice on this matter and that is why the Iowa Legislature should immediately act to pass a Constitutional Amendment that protects traditional marriage, keeps it as a sacred bond only between one man and one woman and gives every Iowan a chance to have their say through a vote of the people."

As I'm sure Senator McKinley is aware an amendment to the Iowan constitution requires both houses of the legislature to pass the amendment in two consecutive general assemblies (two year sessions) and then it must be approved by voters, so no earlier than 2012.

And there's more.

Iowa has no residency requirement for getting a marriage license, which some suggest may mean a flurry of people from other states.

Some suggest? There is no doubt that three weeks from now the Iowa road trip will be a very popular activity for many Minnesotans. And Missourians. And Illinoisans. And even probably some Nebraskans and Kansans.