Bush & Kerry Supporters: Living in Different Worlds

Also: Supplement to this Feature

Compiled by David Pakman

          Bush and Kerry supporters have always seemed to have almost categorically opposite views on reality and the world we live in, and here we will look at a few of these divergences. The original report in which these findings were released is, according to many people, difficult to understand, too complicated, and unintelligible, so we will reanalyze the information contained in the report here, and then provide the original sources and survey methodology at the bottom of this page. The first questions are related to WMD in Iraq:

When asked about experts' beliefs about the existence or lack of WMD in Iraq just prior to the start of the war, the opinion between Bush and Kerry supporters varied greatly. While more than half of Bush supporters believed experts thought Iraq did have WMD, the same amount of Kerry supporters believed experts did not think Iraq had WMD.

          An interesting note is that this survey was taken just after the release of the Duelfer report, although, arguably not surprisingly, there was much misunderstanding of this report, as we will look at next.

          While the Duelfer report contradicted almost entirely the claims of the Bush administration prior to the war. However, more than half of Bush supporters interpreted the report as indicating that Iraq did, in fact, have either WMD or a major weapons program prior to the war. While less than before believed that Iraq had WMD, more believed that they did have a major weapons program.

          Kerry supporters' impression that Iraq had WMD or a major weapons program decreased from the level before they had read about the Duelfer report. The chart to the right shows a significant drop off from August.

          Leading directly from the issues of Iraq and WMD is the issues of Iraq's connection with 9/11 and/or Al-Qaeda.

          The 9/11 Commission released a report saying there is no evidence Iraq provided any kind of mentionable support to Al-Qaeda. However, 75% of Bush supporters believed there was a connection, including 20% who believed that Iraq had direct involvement in the attacks of 9/11.

          Less than half of this amount of Kerry supporters believed in these connections and involvements.

          Even more interesting might be the opinion of the actual 9/11 Commission's report, which we will look at next.

When asked about what the 9/11 Commission Report had actually concluded, there is similar misunderstanding to that of the Duelfer report mentioned above. More than half of Bush supporters still believed that Iraq either support Al-Qaeda significantly, or had direct involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

          Just over one-quarter of Kerry supporters believe either of these premises to be true. What might be most interesting is that based on the report, 25% of Bush supporters' beliefs were eliminated, while only 10% of Kerry supporters changed their opinions based on the 9/11 report. Some say it's because Kerry supporters level of belief in Iraq's support of Al-Qaeda was already so low, but it's difficult to determine the exact reason.

          The next logical question is whether or not the US should have gone to Iraq assuming there were no WMD or Iraqi support of Al-Qaeda. 58% of Bush supporters indicated the US should not have gone to war, compared to 92% of Kerry supporters.

          Separately, 37% of Bush supporters believed that the US should still have gone to war, but for other reasons, while only 6% of Kerry supporters felt the same way.

          The next question asks what Bush and Kerry supporters believe about world sentiment regarding the war on Iraq.

          When asked about how strong they believed world support for the war on Iraq to be, there is a vast divide between Kerry and Bush supporters. 26% of Bush supporters believe the majority of the world favors the war, 42% that world citizens are evenly split, and 31% that the majority of the world opposes the war.

          Kerry supporters believe that almost three-quarters of the world's citizens are against the war on Iraq, while only 5% believe that the majority of the rest of the world supports the war.

          These varied opinions come amidst a steady flow of negative world opinion about the war, public demonstrations all over the world against the war, and most importantly, public opinion polls showing that the majority of the world outside of the US is, overall, opposed to the war. Specifically, a poll done by ten international newspapers of 38 countries, not a single country showed any significant level of support for the war, with no country even close to 50% support.

      Lastly is the question of who would citizens outside the US prefer we elect as our president. 57% of Bush supporters believe that other countries would rather Bush win, while 69% of Kerry supporters believe they would prefer Kerry win.

          International polls have found a strong preference for Kerry. In a survey of 35 countries, 30 prefer Kerry, while 3 prefer Bush, with a high number of people who really prefer neither. The average of all of the countries has Kerry with a 46% favorability, and Bush at 20%.

          The studies and surveys referred to in this feature are based on a PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll: The American Public on International Issues released October 21st, 2004. PIPA is the Program on International Policy Attitudes. Knowledge Networks is a polling, social science, and market research firm.

Methodology (from PIPA/Knowledge Networks results):

          The poll was fielded by Knowledge Networks, with a randomly selected sample of its large-scale nationwide research panel. This panel is itself randomly selected from the national population of households having telephones and subsequently provided internet access for the completion of surveys (and thus is not limited to those who already have internet access). The distribution of the sample in the web-enabled panel closely tracks the distribution of United States Census counts for the US population on age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, geographical location, employment status, income, education, etc.

          The panel is recruited using stratified random-digit-dial (RDD) telephone sampling. RDD provides a non-zero probability of selection for every US household having a telephone. Survey responses are confidential, with identifying information never revealed without respondent approval.

Additionally, we have added a supplement to this feature.

          As always, feel free to email me regarding anything in this feature, including questions, complaints, suggestions, and hate mail.