46% of Mississippi Republicans think interracial marriage should be illegal.
Let’s do that again: according to a Public Policy Polling poll performed last month in Mississippi, limited to “usual Republican primary voters”, 46% of respondents thought interracial marriage should be illegal.
Yes, Public Policy Polling is Democratic Party-biased, and the poll’s margin of error is 5%, and the sample size is only 400. But are you fucking serious?
Yeah, that is pretty disturbing.
Not surprising at all.
Yes, well, this is a state whose front runner is one white cowboy hat and cigar away from being Boss Hogg.
The key phrase there may be “primary voters.” Primaries tend to bring out the wingnut contingent in both parties. Between that and the small sample size (with attendant selection effect issues), I really wouldn’t draw much of a conclusion from this poll. Clearly, there are racists in Mississippi - and if pressed, I’d concede that they probably make up a greater portion of the population in that state than in, say, New Hampshire. But this doesn’t say a whole lot about the state’s GOP, probably.
(I should note, BTW, that I’m a fairly liberal Democrat with no love for that other Party. So I’m not inclined to do them any favors here - but I prefer to see both parties treated fairly according to their merits, or lack thereof. The GOP has a number of faults - but with the exception of the Tea Party, it isn’t racist as an institution.)
Hey, the Nazi Fascist Communist Muslim Atheist Kenyan Barack Obama is the result of miscegenation. This percentage has probably gone up in the last three years.
Erm… really? I was surprised.
Primaries tend to draw the wingnut out of candidates. But I’ve never seen any evidence that wingnuts are more likely to vote in primaries than in general elections.
I’m not saying it does. If it does, I don’t know what, and I don’t know if it does anyway. I’d be equally horrified if they got this result by polling 400 firefighters or dog breeders or Chinese-Americans or Episcopalians.
Didn’t we have this thread last month?
I know I only took one Statistics class, but isn’t a sample size of only 400 too small?
Missed edit window, but I wanted to add that polling a population that, historically and demonstrably, has a history of animus toward people who do not look like they do in an arena where even the most open-minded and tolerant of people can and do have preferences based on race should produce results similar to what is listed in the poll. I’m surprised the percentage is not higher.
Now y’see them ol’ Duke boys ain’t down with the swirl…
If we did, I didn’t see it then and couldn’t find it now.
Did you check both the black and white forums?
:eek:
In this state, it’s illegal to check both.
Think the thread will have legs this time around? This one lasted two days.
'Course, that’s better than this one, that only lasted three-and-a-half hours.
Maybe they did 1000 and then thought that they pick and choose the 400 to suit their needs…and like the OP said “Are you fucking serious?”, with that small sample size, my answer is “No.”
It came up here in MPSIMS a few weeks ago.
It’s a fairly big sample actually, though small enough that there’s probably considerable uncertainty. But if it was actually 46 ± 10% it’s still a pretty pitworthy data point.
More specifically, though, it’s a sample of Republican primary voters, which almost certainly skew to the most reactionary end of the spectrum. Moderates don’t vote in primaries as much. So perhaps it’s more like 46% of the most-conservative 5% who oppose miscegenation. Still scary, and it kind of implies that some fraction of more moderate conservatives also share that view…
HA! Ninja’d both of ya.
I didn’t find the other threads because I assumed anyone who started a thread about the poll would have stuck it in the Pit (and hence I only looked there).
I’m far cooler than Der Trihs and Sully*, and apparently smarter** because my thread is in the Pit, where this topic assuredly belongs.
*I’m probably not really cooler than them.
**Probably not smarter either.
No, it’s not. To be generous, let’s say there were 2M Republican primary voters. For a 95% confidence level that you are +/- 5% you only need to sample 384 voters. Sample Size Calculator - Confidence Level, Confidence Interval, Sample Size, Population Size, Relevant Population - Creative Research Systems.