Cato Unbound has now posted my response to political theorist Jeffrey Friedman’s insightful criticism of my book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter. Here is an excerpt: In his critique of my book, Jeffrey Friedman continues his longstanding efforts to show that most political ignorance is inadvertent rather than rational. In his […]
Archive | Polls
My Response to Sean Trende’s Commentary on Democracy and Political Ignorance
By Ilya Somin on October 22, 2013 6:55 pm in Democracy and Political Ignorance, Political Ignorance, Polls, Public Opinion, Uncategorized
Cato Unbound has posted my response to RealClearPolitics Senior Elections Analyst Sean Trende’s thoughtful commentary on my book Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter. Here is an excerpt: Sean offers three important criticisms of the argument advanced in Democracy and Political Ignorance: that voters know enough to make good decisions on really […]
My Forbes Column on Political Ignorance and the Government Shutdown
The Forbes website recently published an op ed I wrote on public ignorance about the issues involved in the government shutdown. Here is an excerpt: As a government shutdown begins, much of the public knows very little about the issues behind it: Obamacare and the future of the federal budget. An August Kaiser Family Foundation […]
New Pew Poll Gives Obama a Three Point Lead
In my last post, I said that Obama should be favored to win the election, and suggested he has roughly a 65-70 percent chance of winning. My estimate of Romney’s chances was based in large part on his relatively strong showing in national polls, which still had him even with Obama late last week. Today, […]
My Election Prediction
I thinking about doing a post on my election prediction, but Ted Frank has written a post on his election prediction and I agree with almost every word. Bottom line: Obama is a 60-40 favorite. Before the hurricane, I would have said “tossup.”
Overconfident Pundits Predicting Victory for Their Side
Given the extreme closeness of both the national and battleground state polls, one would think that serious political commentators would avoid making bold predictions about the outcome of the presidential race. After all, an overconfident pundit who turns out to be wrong will have egg on their face in just a few days. This is […]
Do Surveys Overestimate Political Ignorance?
In a recent Language Log post, Mark Liberman argues that surveys overestimate the extent of political ignorance. Unfortunately, his evidence is far from compelling. He notes a few examples where scholars or reporters simply misstated the results of a particular survey. That surely happens. But it doesn’t account for more than a small fraction of […]
Obama’s Lead in the Polls is Not a Historical Anomaly
Ever since Obama established a narrow but clear edge in the polls after the Democratic Convention, conservative commentators such as Niall Ferguson, Andrew McCarthy, John Hinderaker, and Peter Robinson have claimed that this is an unusual historical anomaly explicable only by Romney’s poor campaign strategy or lack of personal appeal, or by some sort of […]
The Arab Spring and the Video Riots
Ever since the Arab Spring began, I have been concerned that it could ultimately result in the establishment of Islamist regimes as bad or worse than the more secular dictatorships they replaced. One of the reasons for that fear is that public opinion in many Arab nations is highly illiberal and intolerant. As a result, […]
Public Ignorance About Paul Ryan
Political scientists John Sides and Lynn Vavreck have a helpful post summarizing survey data showing that most of the public knows little or nothing about newly selected GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan: A series of polls done by YouGov for the Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project suggests that most people have never heard of Paul […]
Public opinion about the National Rifle Association
In April, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that the National Rifle Association was viewed favorably by 68% of Americans, and unfavorably by 32%. Unlike most polls, the Reuters poll apparently did not allow “unsure” or “undecided” as a choice. In each of the demographics which the poll provided–Republicans, Democrats, independents, whites, and blacks–the NRA was viewed favorably […]
The Wall Street Journal on Public Ignorance About Federal Spending
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on widespread public ignorance about federal spending [HT: Andrew Varcoe]: Many Americans have strong opinions about policy issues shaping the presidential campaign, from immigration to Social Security. But their grasp of numbers that underlie those issues can be tenuous. Americans vastly overestimate the percentage of fellow residents […]
The Gender Gap in Interest in Politics
Heather Mac Donald has an interesting column on the widely discussed data showing that some 87% of all Wikipedia contributors are male. She argues persuasively that it’s difficult to attribute the gap to discrimination, since most Wikipedia writers are anonymous, thereby making it virtually impossible for Wikipedia to discriminate against women even if they wanted […]
Political Ignorance and Federal Spending
Although federal spending was a major political issue in the 2010 campaign and for many months before it, this recently released CBS poll [HT: Dan Mitchell] reveals widespread public ignorance about the distribution of spending between various programs. The detailed data reveal that only 23% know that Medicare and Medicaid take up between 20 and […]
New Survey Data on Public Attitudes Towards Kelo and Economic Development Takings
By Ilya Somin on November 23, 2010 5:53 pm in Eminent Domain, Kelo, Political Ignorance, Polls, Post-Kelo Reform, Property Rights
Kelo v. City of New London, which ruled that government has the power to forcibly transfer property from one private owner to another in order to promote “economic development,” was one of the most unpopular decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. Polls conducted soon after the decision was issued in 2005 found that […]