Picking Sides

Over the weekend, there was an Ipsos/Reuters poll that covered the ongoing attacks on Iran and the Trump Administration's use of force in general. While the headline proclaimed "Just one in four Americans say they back US strikes on Iran, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds," for myself I wonder if that was what was actually being measured. Consider the results that drove the headline:

While the Democrats booed louder than the Republicans cheered, there's still a pretty clear partisan divide in the numbers, to the point where I wonder if this is really a poll about partisan identity. I'm pretty sure that Ipsos/Reuters weighted their results to better align with what they understand the current partisan percentages to be, so it's unlikely that the percentages given reflect the raw numbers. It is interesting, however, where the numbers for partisans do and do not align with the "Other" category at the bottom of the graph. It's also interesting that, in terms of the "No" choice, that the numbers for the "Other" category roughly align for those for all survey participants, given the broader variance in the other two options.

Overall, the Democratic-identified participants come across as the most reflexively partisan, in the sense that they are more likely to disapprove than Republicans are to approve, less likely to approve than Republicans disapprove and less likely to be undecided about the matter. This could give Republican office-seekers heartburn come this year's election season, as the Democratic coalition tends to have more high-propensity voters, as I understand it. If that holds, and the lower-propensity voters who would otherwise lean Republican stay home, the Democrats may find that they have enough new seats in Congress to actually change things, at least on some level.