At the top of this open thread, mcjoan points to a recent Newsweek poll showing Bush at a 26% overall approval rating.
Newsweek gives the by-party breakdown as follows:
Current Total | 26% | 65% | 9% |
Republicans | 60% | 25% | 15% |
Democrats | 8% | 87% | 5% |
Independents | 20% | 71% | 9% |
A little linear algebra (below the flip) reveals an interesting consequence of these figures: Only 27% of the respondents identified as Republicans, while 41% identified as Democrats (or, alternatively, Newsweek weighted the data in this manner, although Mystery Pollster states that Newsweek does not weight by party.)
I knew Democrats had an advantage in party ID, but fourteen points?
Summary of calculations:
I assumed that the percentages of respondents added up to 100% for each question, since Newsweek included a non-committal "Don't know/don't care" answer.
Letting r, d, and i, represent the percentage of respondents who identified as Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, respectively, we get:
0.60r + 0.08d + 0.20i = 0.26
0.25r + 0.87d + 0.71i = 0.65
0.15r + 0.05d + 0.09i = 0.09
Solving this 3x3 system of equations leads us to:
r = 27.27%
d = 40.91%
i = 31.82%