What was surprising was the following:
We asked voters on this poll whether they think interracial marriage should be legal or illegal- 46% of Mississippi Republicans said it should be illegal to just 40% who think it should be legal. For the most part there aren't any huge divides in how voters view the candidates or who they support for the nomination based on their attitudes about interracial marriage but there are a few exceptions.Of course, one should also check out the polling organization involved: Public Policy Polling scores reasonably well in these articles from the Wall Street Journal, Pollster.com, and FiveThirtyEight.com. As Carl Bialik said in the Wall Street Journal article:
Palin's net favorability with folks who think interracial marriage should be illegal (+55 at 74/19) is 17 points higher than it is with folks who think interracial marriage should be legal (+38 at 64/26.) Meanwhile Romney's favorability numbers see the opposite trend. He's at +23 (53/30) with voters who think interracial marriage should be legal but 19 points worse at +4 (44/40) with those who think it should be illegal. Tells you something about the kinds of folks who like each of those candidates.
At the same time, interactive voice response polls, or IVRs, were as accurate as live-interview surveys, and more thorough. Among phone pollsters, IVR firms SurveyUSA and Rasmussen were active in more states in the last week than any competitor, and Public Policy Polling, which also uses IVR, ranked fourth.Dustin Ingalls, from PPP adds in a comment:
BTW, we did ask this interracial marriage question of everyone, not just Republicans, but we'll be releasing the full results on that at a later date.In any case, more polling is needed, because it seems unfair to have singled out Mississippi Republicans on this question. I'd like to see this question asked of the American electorate in every state, regardless of party affiliation.
Of course, I have a vested interest in this.
Original link from Andrew Sullivan.