A Critical Look At The NYC Mosque Polling Data
Opponents of the New York City community center and mosque located near the site of the former World Trade Center routinely cite polling data as evidence that the project should be killed. Setting aside for a moment the fact that public opinion impeded such civil right advances as giving women the right to vote and freeing slaves, let’s take a look at two of the most cited surveys of New Yorkers.
Polling data are interesting — let’s take one, from July, conducted from June 21 – 28 of 1,183 New York City registered voters, with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points.
- How much have you heard or read about a proposal by a Muslim group to build a Muslim mosque and cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero – a lot, some, not much, or nothing at all?
A lot – 38% … Some – 33% … Not much or Nothing – 27% - Do you support or oppose this proposal?
Support – 31% …. Oppose – 52% …. No Answer/Don’t Know – 17% - Some people say that building a Muslim mosque and cultural center near Ground Zero will foster understanding and teach people that not all Muslims are terrorists; others say that it is an insult to the memory and families of the 9/11 victims – which comes closer to your point of view?
It’s a 42% split on the understanding-insult matrix
First, look at the framing: mosque and cultural center. Is there bias in the question? I think so. “Community and cultural center that contains a mosque” is more accurate and more neutral framing. Ditto the use of “Ground Zero” — clearly an emotional phrase to any New Yorker. The use of that phrase also reinforces the meme that the community center was at or on the World Trade Center site.
Next, look at the high percentage who are uninformed — almost 3-in-10. Should the opinion of someone who is uninformed “count” as much as someone who has thought about the issue? I don’t think so, but with age I’m becoming more disdainful of public policy being driven by the uninformed.
Finally, If 42% say that this “mosque and cultural center” would foster understanding but only 31% support it … what does that mean? That some people don’t want to foster understanding? That some people have unexamined biases — some call it bigotry — that are coloring their answers? Does it mean that the results are skewed by the 3-in-10 who knew nothing but participated in the poll anyway??
The most recent poll, from Siena Research, was conducted as three separate questions tacked on to a survey (15 questions) about illegal immigration. Think that framing might have colored the results?
This SRI survey was conducted July 27-29 and August 2-3, 2010 by telephone calls to 622 New York State residents. It has a margin of error of + 3.9 percentage points. Data was statistically adjusted by age, gender, and self-identified race to ensure representativeness.
Here are highlights from the news release:
- “By a margin of 61 to 26 percent, New Yorkers oppose the proposal to build the Cordoba House” — but 13 percent didn’t answer the question and this tidbit was left out of the press release. That’s because you could now also report that 2-in-5 New Yorkers either support or have no opinion on the project contrasted with 3-in-5 who oppose it. Or you could take the margin of error into account and note that just over half of New Yorkers oppose the project with almost half supporting it or undecided.
- “Only just over half of all New Yorkers, even city residents say they have been following the news about the proposed mosque closely.” However the raw data show that about half of NYers have been following “very or somewhat closely” and about half have followed the story “not very or not at all closely.” So once again we have uniformed opinions coloring the result trumpeted in the news release headline and mainstream media headlines based on the press release.
- 1-in-5 agree with the center as a “monument to religious tolerance”
- 2-in-5 agree with the center as an “offense to the memory of those killed”
- 2-in-5 “think both sides have a legitimate case”
- “Over half of all New Yorkers and NYC residents either agree that the project would promote tolerance or are, at least, willing to listen.”
Looking at the raw data, however, there is a clear trend that is not disguised by the margin of error: people who self-identify as Republican are more likely to think the project is an “offense to the memory of those killed” (57%) than those who self-identify as Democrats (31%) or Independents (29%). Republicans overwhelmingly oppose the project (81%) compared to Democrats (55%) and Independents (54%). [Note: the margin of error will be greater than 3.9 points when examining sub-groups although SRI fails to note this.]
Don’t expect news organizations to do more than spew the press release headline, however. Nuance – or even explanation – is a dying art.
