Stein Gets Included in the QU Poll

I have always loved the word Quinnipiac. The Quinnipiac River in Connecticut is not the most majestic of the old New England rivers, certain no match for the splendor of the mighty Connecticut/Quinnehtukqut. Still, the river opens up into New Haven Harbor, which combines old-school industrial ugliness when older-school picturesque vistas.

Back in my Connecticut days, I even liked crossing the old Quinnipiac Bridge: It was a thrill ride with a risk of actual death for vehicles and their drivers, especially in high winds and hard rains. It is the only bridge I have ever crossed that involved simultaneous roll, pitch, and yaw. For good or ill, that bridge is gone now.

To skip past the rest of this nostalgia trip, click the Read More link below.

Quinnipiac University is one of Greater New Haven's five colleges and universities, along with Southern Connecticut State, UNH, Albertus Magnus, and—uh, what's that other one near Toad's Place? Even with 20 times the population of New Haven, Houston also has five four-year universities, two of which are quite large, but none of which dominates the landscape the way Yale does.

QU is in Hamden, a town immediately north of New Haven, once home to Eli Whitney's workshop. If you're not from up that way, you've probably never heard of the university or its town...unless you follow opinion polls. How does an obscure liberal arts college in an obscure Connecticut town get to be the home of a prestigious political polling organization? Indeed, why does another obscure Connecticut town still play host to America's number one sports network?

While I love the word Quinnipiac, the Quinnipiac River, and the nice new Q Bridge, I have a love-hate relationship with political polling. The major media use the results of these polls for evil purposes much of the time. I shan't go into details about that here. But as a minor-party partisan, I gotta love it when minor parties and their candidates are actually included in the information gathering.

Quinnipiac asked questions that included the name Jill Stein...and published the responses.

Whoa.

The latest QU presidential poll includes questions about a four-way contest between Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein. It contains some remarkable and very meaningful numbers.

First, in a four-way race, Johnson polls 5% and Stein 3% among all respondents. Among independent voters, the percentages are double that or better (10% and 7%). Among self-identified Hispanics, the former New Mexico governor is damn close to the guy who calls Mexican immigrants murderers, rapists, and drug dealers: 15% for Trump, 10% for Johnson.

Here's the kind of question that normally doesn't get much coverage from mass media outlets that focus too narrowly on the "horse-race" aspects of elections. QU asks people their overall impression of Jill Stein, and 80% to 91% of respondents admit they haven't heard enough about her.

The numbers are slightly lower for Johnson, running from 74% to 89%. Generally, Millennials are more likely than their less Web-savvy elders to know about the third-party candidates, and to hold favorable opinions of them.

A college education makes little difference in respondents' knowledge of Johnson and Stein, although those who know tend to hold them in higher esteem.

The mainstream media would never say aloud that they're doing a crappy job of providing information about all the presidential nominees whose names might appear on your ballot.

Also worth a look are questions #2-4: how respondents would feel about Clinton, Trump, or Sanders as their party's standard-bearer. All told, about a fourth of Republicans would be either "dissatisfied" or "embarrassed" to have Trump as their presidential nominee, Among Democrats, the numbers are 19% for Clinton and an astounding 28% for Sanders, which speaks to Sanders's main body of support coming from independent voters rather than active Democrats. The Bernie-hatred rates only 8% among the very liberal, but 40% among moderate-to-conservative Democrats.

Go ahead and get lost in the numbers. Or maybe you'd prefer not to. Maybe it's just a me thing.