An exciting new methodology has produced some surprising results on the Roberts nomination.We, like almost all pollsters, use focus groups, but they have real weaknesses. New online discussion technology helps to overcome some of those limitations. Instead of talking to just 20 people a night, one can talk to 100 at once. Instead of having participants influenced by dominant personalities, everyone can respond in private. And instead of limiting every individual’s participation to just a few minutes, you can hear from almost every respondent on every question.

An exciting new methodology has produced some surprising results on the Roberts nomination.We, like almost all pollsters, use focus groups, but they have real weaknesses. New online discussion technology helps to overcome some of those limitations.Instead of talking to just 20 people a night, one can talk to 100 at once. Instead of having participants influenced by dominant personalities, everyone can respond in private. And instead of limiting every individual’s participation to just a few minutes, you can hear from almost every respondent on every question.We deployed this new technique a week ago in a session on the Roberts nomination, and it yielded some fascinating results.Of course this is not a poll. Participants are recruited as for a focus group, so results are not projectable to the population as a whole, although this group of swing voters, like the electorate overall, started out largely ignorant of Judge John Roberts’s record but positively disposed toward his confirmation as a Supreme Court justice. After being exposed to information about his briefs and decisions as well as to the administration’s positive spin on his background, however, voters turned dramatically again him.Initially, 55 percent leaned toward support for confirmation. But by the end of the group, a large majority took a very different view, with 76 percent opposed to confirmation.That shift cut across demographic categories, even party – anti-Roberts sentiment at the end of the session was equally strong among both Bush and Kerry voters. (The text of the information we provided participants is available on our clients’ website or from us.)The reasons for this switch were evident from the rest of the results. More than anything else, voters want a justice who is fair, open-minded and above partisan politics. Roberts’s expressed desire to overturn Roe v. Wade, along with his brief in support of Operation Rescue, arguing that the group’s violent clinic blockades were not discrimination against women, told voters on both sides of the aisle that he lacked those critical qualities.A large majority of respondents (79 percent) initially felt that a nominee’s statement in support of overturning Roe would be sufficient grounds for opposing confirmation. Many participants explained this position in the context of fundamental rights: “Freedom to choose one’s path in life is the foundation of this country, and nothing should jeopardize that”; “It’s a right-to-privacy issue!” Some others focused on continuity of the law: “This issue has been decided already.