With the mid-term congressional election less than two months away, Americans—and Independent voters in particular—are reacting very differently to two recent political advertisements, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
With the mid-term congressional election less than two months away, Americans—and Independent voters in particular—are reacting very differently to two recent political advertisements, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,007 American adults, respondents were shown two ads: one from Republican congressional candidate Ben Quayle, and another paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The 31-second ad begins with Quayle, who is running as a Republican in Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, calling Barack Obama “the worst president in history” and urging for “somebody” to go to Washington and “knock the hell out of the place.”
The word used the most by respondents to describe the Ben Quayle ad is informative (34%), followed by honest (33%), true (30%), and useless (28%). Two-in-five Democrats (43%) find the ad offensive, while half of Republicans (49%) deem it true.
Independents are more likely to use some positive words on consistency with fact (True 36%, Untrue 24%) and sincerity (Honest 36%, Deceiving 23%).
The 75-second ad states that House Minority Leader John Boehner “invented the ways of Washington” and states that Republicans want to “take us back to the Bush Era economic policies.” The ad finishes with a scene from an interview where NBC’s David Gregory presses Boehner to answer a question about tax cuts.
The word used the most by respondents to describe the ad is informative (46%), followed by deceiving (35%), useless (29%) and true (25%). Three-in-five Democrats (63%) say the ad as informative, and half of Republicans (48%) believe it is deceiving.
Independents are more likely to use negative words on sincerity (Honest 16%, Deceiving 46%), but are evenly split consistency with fact (True 21%, Untrue 21%).
Analysis
Independents reacted better to the Ben Quayle ad than to the DNC ad. A third of them found the Ben Quayle ad to be true and honest. The simplicity of the Quayle ad—the candidate speaking directly to the camera with a tie but no jacket, and the absence of special effects or music—appears to be more powerful in courting Independents than the DNC commercial, which features high-end graphics, music and a narrator. The fact that roughly the same proportion of Independents and Republicans called the ad deceiving suggests that the use of selected bits of video featuring Boehner was not particularly effective.
Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)
Mario Canseco, Vice President, Communications & Media Relations
+877 730 3570
mario.canseco@angus-reid.com
Methodology: From August 27 to August 29, 2010, Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey among 1,007 American adults who are Springboard America panelists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.1%. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure a sample representative of the entire adult population of the United States.
