I do not understand why polling firms do not understand what a loaded question is and why it can potentially result in bad conclusions and advice. This is not rocket science, but there is a science to it that shouldn’t be ignored.
Case in point: Question on a Navigator Survey
Regardless of how much you have seen or heard about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF), do you support or oppose President Biden and a bipartisan group of Senators passing a new infrastructure plan to improve roads and bridges, expand power infrastructure, increase passenger and rail access, and improve water infrastructure?
Biggest problem: The question asks whether you support or oppose “passing” a bill with all these good sounding things. Well duh!
It reminds me of all those questions about bipartisanship where the polling firm asks if you would like to see Democrats and Republicans “working together” and the majority of people say yes. Again duh! But I would also like to see world peace, something about as likely as Congressional Republicans working in good faith.
The first part of the question is also a problem. Why are you signaling to people and those who analyze the survey that it doesn’t matter whether and what participants know (or think they know) about this bill before responding to this question? Do participants know that Republicans want to underfund transit? Do they know that Republicans want to take money from COVID relief? Do they know that Republicans prefer to fund things by putting user fees on them and won’t consider raising money by pursuing wealthy tax cheats? Why did Navigator not ask whether they support or oppose potential characteristics of BIF that are being discussed?
Also, did Navigator ask questions to determine whether people still value pursuing bipartisanship if it results in little or no progress? Did they ask questions about scenarios where the bill doesn’t get passed, or for that matter, even written? Did they ask if participants would be Ok with an alternative — for example, Democrats rolling it into their legislation and passing it in a partisan manner (reconciliation) — if a bipartisan bill was taking too long? If so, please get those results out there.
Note that Navigator is advertised as a firm “helping shape the debate for Progressives on the issues that matter most for Americans”. They do seem to be doing some very valuable research, however, as a Progressive, I would argue that this particular survey question and those like it are of little or no help in terms of Progressives communicating with most Americans, or even worse, could lead to some very bad messaging decisions.
It would be tragic if advisors and consultants use survey question results like these to turn Joe Biden from a potentially transformational progressive president back into the more traditional Democratic Don Quixote (or Manchin or Sinema) of bipartisanship.