Survey Says: Behind The Edwards Poll
Sometimes a news story require some rapid polling, and last week's John and Elizabeth Edwards press conference announcing the recurrence of Elizabeth Edwards' cancer was one of them. And when it was followed by a much-discussed "60 Minutes" interview, the story became even more interesting.
We knew on Monday that we should find out answers to questions about whether Americans supported the decision to keep campaigning, and if this new information would affect Edwards' chances of winning the Democratic nomination. Did men and women react differently? How did watching the "60 Minutes" interview affect people? Did people have their own experiences with breast cancer that impacted their opinions?
To measure the impact on the Democratic primary race, we needed to make sure we interviewed enough Democratic primary voters to get significant results. And we also wanted to get results as quickly as we reasonably could. So we planned a two-day survey (Monday and Tuesday), and over-sampled Democratic primary voters (we did this by calling back some on the people we had interviewed in previous polls).
We released the first result on today's Early Show, and the rest of the poll later in the day. We did learn that the support for Edwards' decision crossed all age groups, was the same for men and women, and the same for people who watched on Sunday as for those who did not. Those people who know someone who had breast cancer were also supportive.
But public support for Edwards' decision to continue his presidential campaign doesn't necessarily translate into support for him as president – at least not yet. Most Democratic voters believe Edwards is qualified and say he could win the election if nominated, but right now John Edwards runs behind Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in a three-way contest. In the CBS News Poll, 36% of Democratic primary voters support Clinton, 28% Obama, and just 18% pick Edwards.
For more on these and other polls, visit our poll page right here.