Now they claim Obama is the worst US President

Rejoinder to the Quinnipiac National Poll

Mr. Tim Malloy/ Dr. Douglas Schwartz
Quinnipiac University
Hamden, Connecticut, USA

Dear Sirs,

I would first like to congratulate you and the Quinnipiac University on making global headlines as a result of the recent Quinnipiac National Poll, which revealed 'President Obama as the worst American President since World War II' . I guess you must feel a sense of accomplishment on this ground breaking and headline grabbing survey. When I saw the headline on CNN, I was intrigued with the findings and decided to analyse the survey methodology to check the robustness of the approach and the validity of the conclusion. However, upon further examination, I realised that the survey was not as robust as the headlines might suggest.

Here are my reasons.

First, the sample size used for the survey is not representative enough to arrive at such a conclusion. In the survey, you used a sample of 1,446 registered voters nationwide who were surveyed over a six-day period between 24 June 2014 and 30 June 2014. As at 30 June 2014, the total US population was 316,122,143. This suggests that the sample size used was 0.000457418132% of the total US population. Furthermore the sample period only covered seven days out of the total 5,166 days since President Obama has been President. This translates to 0.1355% of his total tenure in office.

Second, the research data does not reveal the basis for selecting the sample. It would have been beneficial for users of the research to know the rationale for sample selection so that they can be confident that there was no bias in the selection. It would help if in future, if your organisation could provide this sort of information.

Third, the research fails to factor the economic status of the respondents. This information is critical as certain government policies and actions might be more appealing to certain socio economic groupings relative to others and might thereby influence the respondent's assessment of the Obama Administration. A typical case is President Obama's healthcare policies.

Fourth, while the research classifies the responses along lines of the sample characteristics such as party affiliation, gender and age distribution, one of the most important classifications that could enable the reader to better appreciate the responses has been omitted from the conclusion i.e. RACE.

In short, the survey findings is flawed and compromised because it fails to account for and adjust for racial bias.

Race is a topical issue in the United States, which is a country that has a long history of racial tensions and injustice starting first with the extermination of the American Indians and later the implementation of slavery which metamorphosed to Jim Crow segregation and is now manifested in the form of unconscious and institutional racism. In addition, since President Obama is a black man presiding over a majority white populated country, the issue of race needs to be factored in such a survey by adjusting for racial bias.

Some of the key features in the findings of the study are:

• 54 per cent of the respondents say the Obama Administration is not competent in running the government.
• Majority of the respondents give President Obama negative grades for his handling of the economy, foreign policy, healthcare, the environment and terrorism.
• Finally, according to the respondents of the survey, President Obama is the worst President in US history since World War II.

Looking at the racial distribution of the respondents, 73 percent of the respondents were White, while 13% and 7% were Black and Hispanics respectively with the remaining 7% classified as others. With such a significant bias in favor of the white respondents, it is highly feasible that the results of the study could be tilted to the viewpoints of the white segment of the respondent sample.

To adjust for racial bias,one needs to analyse each of the responses along the racial distribution of the respondents and unfortunately, the study relegates this to an appendix. In the main body of the survey which features prominently on the website, there is no analysis by racial demographics.

In the appendix, the following question is asked:

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as President?

The response for this question (which does not feature prominently on the website) is revealing and demonstrates the flaw and racial bias in the study with 83% of the black respondents felt President Obama was doing a good job while 10% of blacks felt otherwise. For the Hispanics, 47% felt he was doing a good job with 39% disagreeing and 14% not answering the question. In contrast, only 33 % of the white respondents felt Obama was doing a good job while 67% of white respondents sampled felt he was not handling his job properly.

Likewise President Obama ranks as one of the best Presidents as far as blacks and Hispanics are concerned while Presidents Bush, Nixon Reagan rank as worst among the black respondents. In short, the white respondents felt Obama was incompetent while the non-white respondents felt he was competent.

The above clearly demonstrates that the conclusions of the study are color biased and color-coded. Since no adjustment has been made for racial bias in the conclusion, it would be more beneficial if your organisation and the global media changed the narrative as follows :

1) Obama is the Worst American President since WWII as far as White Americans are concerned

2) White America feels that the Obama Administration is not competent in running the government.

3) Non-white Americans feel that President Obama is handling his job as President well.

This study has had the unintended consequence of highlighting that America is polarised along racial lines. W E Du Bois, the Black historian and sociologist once said that the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line. It seems that this problem is still in existence in the 21st century and this should be the message that needs to be relayed as headline news around the world.

Yours faithfully,

Ahmed Olayinka Sule, CFA