What’s
Wrong Today:
Everything and every
attitude is the subject of polling in America. The reason for that is as a
people, we really agree on very little. So, the Wrongologist passes along the
results of a telephone survey conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP),
regarding the foods and food organizations Americans prefer. (Hat tip
to Linda, a Wrongologist subscriber)
PPP was ranked by the
Wall Street Journal as one of the top
swing state pollsters and did better than the New York Times’ 538.com and its super geek, Nate Silver.
You will see in the
press release below that Americans picked Ronald McDonald over the Burger King for
President, 36% to 22%, but happily, 42% were not sure. Would Ronald be worse
for the country than John Boehner? After all, both are clowns with red noses.
Apparently, Marco
Rubio’s and Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions are safe for the moment.
Here is PPP’s press
release: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)
this highly polarized political climate Democrats
and Republicans can’t even agree about food.
Democrats
are the party of bagels (34%) and croissants (32%) while Republicans prefer to
eat donuts (35%).
Democrats
like KFC better than Chick Fil A (39/18) while Republicans take Chick Fil A
over KFC by a 48/29 spread.
Democrats
are cool with vegans (a 48/22 favorability rating) while GOP voters have a
negative opinion of them (31/41).
Democrats
prefer regular soda (47/31) while Republicans prefer diet (42/34).
And
while Republicans narrowly believe that Olive Garden constitutes ‘a quality
source of authentic ethnic food’ (43/41), Democrats (41/44) think it does not.
There
are plenty of food issues where Democrats and Republicans do see eye to eye
though:
-Overall
40% of Americans have a positive opinion of fast food to 49% who view it
negatively. Democrats and Republicans both come in at 41/50 on their general
opinion toward fast food.
-52%
of Americans say that dinner is their favorite meal of the day. 29% go for
breakfast, and lunch brings up the rear at 11%. Democrats and Republicans both
strongly back dinner.
-Coke
beats out Pepsi 43/35 in the soft drink wars, drawing support from both
Republicans (47/33) and Democrats (44/37).
-And
there’s a strong sentiment from voters crossing demographic lines that they’d
rather have a coke than a beer (57/30).
There’s
mixed news on the fast food burger front. Burger King wins best honors with 22%
to 19% for Wendy’s and 15% for McDonald’s. McDonald’s with 22% takes the
dubious least favorite prize with 22% to 16% for Hardee’s and 15% for both
Burger King and Jack in the Box. But the news isn’t all bad for McDonald’s- in
a hypothetical Presidential race Ronald McDonald would beat out the Burger King
36/22.
We also looked at some more serious
food issues. 54% of voters say that
they’d be willing to pay more for their restaurant meals to help employees have
health insurance to 30% who say they would not. Democrats (72/19) are
overwhelmingly willing to pay more for that purpose, but Republicans by a
narrow margin (41/38) as well. This
issue has received a lot of attention because of Papa Johns’ complaints about
Obamacare, and that chain doesn’t fare too well in our favorite pizza voting:
Pizza Hut wins with 30% to 17% for Papa John’s, 15% for Domino’s, and 5%
for Little Caesar’s.
We
also found that only 21% of Americans consider themselves to be obese. Last
year the CDC estimated that almost 36% of Americans are actually obese, and it
seems possible that the lack of self awareness among people who are obese could
help to explain why so many more people are than think they are.
A
few final notes from the poll:
-49%
of Americans have a favorable opinion of vegetarians to 22% with a negative
one. For vegans it’s a 38/30 spread.
-Overall
13% of the people we surveyed consider themselves to be either vegetarians (6%)
or vegans (7%).
-Americans
narrowly prefer pancakes (33%) over French toast (30%) with waffles finishing
well back at 22%.
PPP surveyed 500
registered American voters from February 21st to 24th. The margin of error for
the overall sample is +/-4.4%.
PPP surveys are
conducted through automated telephone interviews.
