Last week a Rasmussen poll showed that only 38 percent of Americans support Obama's mortgage plan, but a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that 64 percent of Americans somewhat or strongly support Obama's plan. Why the wildly different results? How the poll questions were phrased might explain the difference. The WaPo/ABC News poll asks:
- On another economic issue, would you support or oppose the federal government using 75 billion dollars to provide refinancing assistance to homeowners to help them avoid foreclosure on their mortgages? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
Rasmussen asks:
1* To reduce the number of mortgage foreclosures, should the federal government subsidize mortgage payments for financially troubled homeowners?
It seems that the difference between these two questions is that Rasmussen states that the government would "subsidize" "financially troubled homeowners", while the WaPo/ABC poll states that the government would be "using" money to provide "refinancing assistance to homeowners". Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but it seems that Rasmussen emphasizes that those getting government cash are financially troubled, while the WaPo poll leaves the impression that the money may go to a larger pool of homeowners. Of course, one would think it would be easy to infer from the Post poll question that people who need "help" to "avoid foreclosure" are financially troubled. But unless one (or both) of the pollsters got a bad sample, the subtle differences in phrasing may explain the big difference in the results.