Inserted from <Public Policy Polling<\/a>>![\"polling\"](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202010\/J-M\/WhyDemocratsMustGoItAlone_2CCC\/polling.jpg\" "\\"polling\\"")
<\/a> The vast majority of opposition to health care and allowing gays to serve openly in the military is coming from people who already say there’s no chance they’ll vote Democratic this fall<\/strong>. That’s an indication of minimal fallout for Congressional Democrats by acting on these issues.<\/span>
37% of Americans say they will definitely not vote Democratic for Congress this year. 34% say they definitely will and that leaves roughly 30% of the country up for grabs.<\/span>
Right now 50% of voters say they oppose President Obama’s health care plan to just 39% in support. Digging a little deeper on those numbers though 64% of respondents planning or open to voting Democratic this fall support it with only 22% opposed. The overall numbers are negative only because of 94\/1 opposition among folks who have said there is no way they’ll vote Democratic this fall<\/strong>. <\/span>
It’s a similar story when it comes to the prospect of repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ Over 54% of voters support it with 37% opposed. But among the voters Democrats need to make happy- the ones planning to or considering voting for them this year- there is 72\/24 support for letting gays and lesbians serve openly in the military<\/strong>. The total numbers are brought down only because of 59\/25 opposition with folks who will never vote for them anyway\u2026<\/span>
…Full results<\/span> here<\/a>. [PDF] [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Regular readers probably know that, before I became disabled, I worked in opinion research. I examined the poll and found the questions worded and ordered in such a way as to be non-biased. The only bias I found was in the demographics of the sample, as slight more self-identified \u2018conservatives\u2019 were included than liberals. If the results are at all skewed, the actual situation is better than reported.
What Democrats should learn from this poll is that the people they would turn off by going it alone are people who weren\u2019t going to vote for them anyway.
Rachel Maddow discussed the attempt by progressive Senators to pass the public option through reconciliation, which I reported yesterday<\/a>, and also discussed reconciliation with Bernie Sanders.