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John Zogby: hello, it's Friday. That means another edition of Real Polling in Real Time with Zogby. I'm John Zogby. There's my son Jeremy Zogby. How you doing?
Jeremy Zogby: Hey, happy Friday.
John Zogby: Thanks, and you too. And so we have, promised to, stick to the data. Basically, and some fresh numbers from our regular polling. thought we'd do something a little different today, less about the horse races home, a lot more about issues that have generated controversy. and a lot of discussion about the future of the democratic party, the future and the meaning of the Republican party. So we're going to jump right in and take a look at what our poll says about two very controversial issues. diversity. Equity and inclusion, DEI, [00:01:00] which is in the process of, the enormous change, even breaking up. And the second is the focus on the issue of LGBTQ rights, something that played a major role in the 2024 election. And to kind of get an update from the vantage point of February now as to where voters stand on those two issues. Jerry, you want to start us out? We had a couple of questions about it. What did voters tell us?
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah, so I mean, obviously, there's so much going on right now. Right now, the I'd say that what appears to be the top two stories in the news are DOGE or as I call doggy. and, of course, that ties into de I, a bit, but also Ukraine. And so, really, though, as you pointed out, this was a major backdrop.
To the general notion, [00:02:00] from the perspective of American voters who, who, who turned out to vote in November, that they were looking for a return to common sense as, Trump has been, touting the, the, the phrase lately. And so we asked very straightforward, simple baseline questions to get a flavor of where voters are at in the moment.
And. You know, democratic strategists and, and, and democratic operatives and, politicians, aspiring politicians, or just voters in general take note. so without further ado, the question that we're dealing with now, DEI goes like this regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, many agencies and companies carried out over the past several years Transcribed Overall, would you say it has been a major success, [00:03:00] has had some success, has more or less failed, or has been a major failure?
That's a four point scale. We combine those, those two on the opposing side. So a major success in some success is overall regarding voters, 47%, specifically 16 percent said in major. 31 percent said some, versus more or less failed or has been a major failure. And, maybe a little bit surprisingly, we get 41%.
So 47 percent say it has more or less been successful versus 41 percent of voters who say it's been a failure. You know, before I dive into Say, party and race and, maybe age. what, what's your, what's your [00:04:00] interpretation of that top line data Dad?
John Zogby: That it's split down the middle. and, you know, it is a wedge issue. pure and simple. And, you know, there are strictly in terms of politics. There are times when you need to focus on wedge issues to ensure that your base is with you and highly intense. There are other times when you want to push wedge issues into the background, not Deny support or not change your position, but just not emphasize wedge issues simply because, as you can see, it brings out the intensity of the other side, as you're going to show right now, when you take a look at, you know, some of the, you know, the, the internals in the poll, like party and age and race. groups and how they view it.
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah, and I guess what struck me with this data [00:05:00] was given the fact that, you know, look, in terms of the popular vote, Trump won by a sliver in terms of winning the battleground states and electorally. It was a landslide, right? and so one could almost think going into this poll, we might expect the results to be flipped, that more would say it has been a failure.
But I, before I dive into the demographics, I, I want to make an interpretation, and you let me know what you think of this, that success can be defined differently. And the fact that six percentage points higher of, of American voters say it has been more of a success than a failure, tells me not only, it's not so much that that means 47 percent favorite.
I think that's also interpreted as Americans say, okay, we've done a lot. We've come a long way. You know, we've had the issue of, affirmative action going [00:06:00] back decades. And here we are and look where we're at. Go to a college campus, go to any university. Go to, government offices and look at advertising, and it's a very colorful America.
And so, that success could also be interpreted, hence why I think a plurality are saying it's been a success, is that over the long term, it's been a success, and now it's time to move forward. We can't perfectly level the playing field. But we've done our best. Now, let's just move forward and let's heal that way.
John Zogby: to add to that if I could, and
Jeremy Zogby: sure.
John Zogby: I'm in agreement with you. So one of the first companies that announced that it was abandoning its DEI efforts, John Deere, which is in the middle of rural. Midwest America, which found that despite its best efforts and its policy, that it [00:07:00] just couldn't interest a diverse group of people to come and work, or come and locate that part of the world and that kind of rural agricultural focused sector. And so they abandoned it for purely practical work. purposes. So D. E. I. Also just could not be a one size fits all policy. And that's why, consistent with what you're saying, it's something that had to be, at least the flexibility to shelve it. In certain places and not a mandate
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, let's look at, two groups and then we'll move on to the next question. First, we're, we're just gonna look at, what we call the group B of the, the, the race demographic. That's white and non white, just to keep it simple here. And we look at the white cohort and, It's 45 percent say that it's been a [00:08:00] success, versus, 44 percent who say that it's, it's been a failure.
and, and that's pretty interesting. That's pretty intriguing. on the flip side, those who are non white, that would be Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, and other, you have 52 percent who say it's been a success. Versus 34%. I, I, I then want to go to ideology real quick. No surprise here that, 79% of liberals say it's been a success and that, 74% of conservatives on the flip side say it's been a failure.
But I think where we find, the real interesting data point here is you go to the moderates. It's my perception that more often than not. moderate voters tend to be a little bit more liberal. And so when we look at moderate voters, it's, [00:09:00] 46 percent say it's DEI, overall has been a success. And that, 37%, I mean, not entirely split, but I think that sheds light, that kind of more or less of what we're saying, that I think the data portends that, It's time to move forward.
At least that's how you definitely have your groups who are high on it and intense about it, both in the positive and the negative sense, but also just, when you put it all together, We, America, in the grand scheme of things, has made leaps and bounds.
John Zogby: it has. And, there are ways of going about policies. There are ways of, of deemphasizing or, or there are ways of pounding people. the heads, but I [00:10:00] think, you know, what we're seeing is number one, a change among Hispanics and blacks and Asians in terms of what they want to emphasize and, the support that Donald Trump received in the last election and the mindset that, look, we don't want to be seen as helpless victims.
We don't want to be seen. one dimensional, voting blocks that are only concerned about civil rights and human rights, want to move forward. That's one way of looking at it. The other is to take a look at both parties and what they've been saying. The Democratic Party its big problem is that it's not a party of, with a unified national message.
It's bits and pieces of various, interest groups, you know, kind of a [00:11:00] hodgepodge that are kind of thrust together in a kind of zero sum game so that it's, know, dealing with sixties and seventies messages to various groups, that as it had made gains among non whites, it was consistently since Ronald Reagan losing support. More and more among Catholic voters, ethnic voters, collar voters. And that's a problem. And I think these two questions are kind of astute and give us a, an opening and understanding what the democratic party has to do by the same token. party can go only so far with its perception of, well, just, let's just take the, the, the meat cleaver and just eliminate all the, there are some very good people who were working in diversity, equity, and [00:12:00] inclusion, and to just wholesale, give them pink slips, you know, that in other agencies is
Jeremy Zogby: Yes.
John Zogby: approach as well.
I think.
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah, yeah, yeah! And, and, I mean, to, to just You know, you said interest groups, that that's a hodgepodge of interest groups makes up the modern Democratic Party. also, I mean, another way of putting it is so many slivers of identities.
John Zogby: Mm
Jeremy Zogby: of course, liberals and democrats will say, well, America is a mosaic.
You know, like you walk into a church and you get that stained, that beautiful stained glass, that that's America. It's all these different colors. And it molds together and, but I, I think when, when you're talking about politics and, a very heated, landscape, it doesn't always work so well.
And I, I think it was, that was on full display a couple weeks ago [00:13:00] when the party leadership were voting on who their executive chairman were going to be. And there were so many rules about, You know, varying genders and, and, what words to use. Don't just use male and female that we saw the footage and the party members themselves got confused.
And, for those who observed that they said it was a giant mess and that was just more or less a microcosm of what we're talking about and, and how that can go too far. But, you know, moving on to this other question. I wanted to know this because, you know, this is really rattling the country and it has been for a while, you know, at the forefront of the culture wars is not so much the LGB, part.
I think it's more the T, part of, of the equation that has, got the spotlight. And, you know, there are the [00:14:00] stories about the, the, You know, I, I don't know whether the, the, the drag queen, story hour at the children's libraries, whatever. I wanted to ask the question, regarding the LGBTQ plus community, and, and having their cause represented, would you say overall the movement, and here are the choices, has gone too far and needs to tone down, versus is still not fairly represented And needs to make more headway or not sure.
And here's where the numbers are, you know, really, I think clearer 49 percent of voters say that it's gone too far and needs to tone down and, 36 percent say that it's still not fairly represented and needs to make more headway in, in terms of representing its cause. Of course, 15 percent are, are undecided.[00:15:00]
What's your reaction to that?
John Zogby: Well, is a very sensitive topic. On one hand, let's not lose sight of the fact that to be transgender or become transgender is, is not an easy thing, and, and that, the, the notion of gender identity is very complicated, and for those and their loved ones, it's also a very painful experience, and so it's a question of rights. It's a question of, of, bullying and a history of bullying. And just the physical pain of, of mental pain of identifying, well, who am I, how do I fit in? by the same token, it's also something that is, has come out into the limelight more and more. Yes. People have felt of a freedom now to discuss [00:16:00] their gender identity.
That makes a lot of folks very uncomfortable. We saw in this election that, the extremes on both sides, those transgender who are saying, I need to be free and I need to have my own identity, those who were opposed, fearful of change. tired of that kind of talk, fear of going into bathrooms, and that sort of thing.
This all could have been handled, much better, but I think, in many ways, having it be a part of a presidential campaign, and I blame both sides is not a it's a political issue just as much as I don't ever feel that abortion needs to be a political issue. That is something that is [00:17:00] private and personal and professional and not something that you should vote on in a ballot box.
Jeremy Zogby: I mean, I'm in total agreement with that. I, it's, it certainly isn't something that, that, you know, forget about me. You know, most voters are more concerned about paying their bills and whether they're going to go bankrupt. or even, you know, in one way or another, safety, whether it's their actual, physical safety, their financial safety.
Or whatever, but you know, I do have to say that, some of the, the more, hardliners on this position, if you will, made it very easy, for the Republicans to mobilize this message. Now I know that the, I think the liberal perception was that, that the Republicans either invented or completely engineered a mass [00:18:00] hysteria.
out of nothing with some of the stories that were going on in, you know, Loudoun County, Virginia, was the famous battleground and there were all kinds of videos of mothers showing up to boardrooms, school board, meetings, talking about some of the explicit content that was, in, the children's literature, but you know, I, I mean, I actually experienced this personally and, and I think this sheds light on, on number one, how, it was very easy for, for Republicans to, to drive this message and how voters in general ultimately went that way.
And, you know, the story, I'll keep it very simple is, you know, we bring our children to the public library and, you know, there was a, you know, the, the public library often puts out books at children's eye level, you know, little three and four year olds come in. And as soon as they walk in the first books that they see.
One of them was about, a gay pride [00:19:00] parade, which is not, problematic in itself. But when you go into some of the images of the book, and there was, you know, images of the parade, and there was public nudity, and there were individuals who were wearing BDSM, you know, bondage, and, you know, sadomasochist stuff, and just stuff that, you know, no 3, year old should ever really see.
And so, it's not so much the lesbian and the gay and the bisexual or even maybe the transgender and the queer or the plus part of it. It was more or less the fervor of sexuality. Which I think all Americans would agree, whether that's hetero or whether that's homosexual or whatever, it's inappropriate.
It's not like, you know, the people who would have a problem with that book would say, Oh yeah, well, just have a male and a female. You know, book, you know, of them in bedroom and that's okay. No, it was the [00:20:00] explicit content that I think, signals the, you know, what we see here that a plurality of voters say it has gone too far.
It's not again, necessarily the sexual orientation, but the public, the publicity and the publicizing of the sexual, explicit material.
John Zogby: You know, just to be blunt, you will recall that years ago we had a transgender, receptionist and supervisor in our call center, a transgender woman, and several of the older women who had worked for me for many years in the call center came up to me and said, we, don't want her the ladies room. And so I talked to her. About it, and she laughed and she said. Look, I'm going to the bathroom. I don't want to see their thing [00:21:00] and they don't want to see mine. And so I actually, down with some of the longtime, interviewers. And I said, that's what she told me. And they laughed. And it was never an issue again. Go to the bathroom, close the door, and leave. and there will not be any incidents. God, we had plenty of, As, as you'll remember. This is a, a non issue that's, become tragic. And again, is not something for political campaigns at all. Despite all the publicity. it gets. Final word.
Jeremy Zogby: no, I, I mean, I would just be rehashing what I already said and I, I, there's no need to do that. I think we understand though, regardless of, of our observations about, you know, life that we have the [00:22:00] data here and, I think in, in some, these two issues that became a major part of the democratic platform.
a majority or a, let's say a plurality or a large enough section or cohort of voters in general, just don't see any need for them to be at the forefront. and, and I do have to say that I, I think you would agree with me, it is a large part of the reason how the Democrats and they're under their poor performance and, on election day in general, in, in the general election.
In November, and that, you know, what, what they're going to be doing going forward to go back to the drawing board and to become the fierce lean, machine that they, they used to be, I, I would just invite and encourage the Democratic Party to go back to its roots and [00:23:00] do some of that soul searching, of course, some would say that this, this is the extension of that, but, the results in the election say otherwise.
John Zogby: And this is how we do and how we interpret polling. And if you want to know how to read and interpret polling better, then there is my book. here it is on the screen, about how to read polls and why we should, here's where it's available. And, I hope you'll read it. Take a look at it. More importantly, I hope you'll consider buying it. it for this week. We'll see you next week
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah, and I think next week we may have some brand new polling. and if it's not next week, it'll definitely be the week after. But we'll aim to for next week.
John Zogby: have a good week
Jeremy Zogby: Take care.[00:24:00]