Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com asks the question in light of Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross’s stated opposition to a public option as part of health care reform. Writes Mr. Silver,
Ross may well have gotten a significant number of letters and e-mails against the public option. He may have hosted a town hall forum before an audience who was skeptical of such a provision. But if Ross had actually polled his district, it’s unlikely he would have found overwhelming opposition to the public option. Instead, he might even have found a that a plurality or majority of his constituents supported the public plan.
He further argues that there is a direct correlation between support for the public option and poverty.
While Arkansas-4 does not have a lot of Obama voters, it does have a lot of people in poverty: 20.5 percent of its population, which ranks it 50th out of the 435 Congressional Districts. It is basically like an exaggerated version of Kentucky where, according to the Research 2000 poll, 46 percent support the public option and 45 percent oppose it. That the public option is “overwhelmingly” unpopular in such a district is unlikely.
Using logistic regression, Mr. Silver and his team have forecasted where support for a public option lies, and the data is broken down by congressional district.
Here are the numbers for Arkansas,
AR – 1 48% (Favor), 42% (Unfavor)
AR – 2 45% (Favor), 44% (Unfavor)
AR – 3 34% (Favor), 54% (Unfavor)
AR – 4 49% (Favor), 41% (Unfavor)
UPDATE: A few of the posts in the comments section note, Daily Kos via Research 2000, a non-partisan polling group, is going to look into polling the 4th district and other blue dog districts to determine whether Mr. Silver’s numbers are accurate. Like I said below, Mr. Silver’s built his reputation on his statistical analysis and extrapolation, so I think it’s worth taking serious stock in his numbers.