Just as with President Donald Trump’s overall approval rating, the immigration freeze appears to be more popular in polls conducted online or by automated phone calls. | AP Photo Polls fuel both sides in travel ban fight

The Trump administration’s executive order on immigration is generating a wide range of polling results, fueling the arguments of both the administration and its critics.

Polls on the executive order — which pauses immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries and suspends the admittance of refugees of war — are discordant. Some, like the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, show widespread support for the order. President Donald Trump on Wednesday posted a graphic from that poll on his Twitter page, quoting, “Immigration Ban Is One Of Trump's Most Popular Orders So Far.”


But other surveys show majorities of Americans are opposed to the order and believe it is contrary to the nation’s values. Democrats have no shortage of polls to cite: Surveys from CBS News, CNN/ORC, Gallup and Quinnipiac University each show majorities opposed to the order and its various provisions.

Why the discrepancy? Here are three possible explanations.

1. Question wording matters.

Polling on complex policy issues is difficult, and pollsters are always conflicted over how to characterize multifaceted laws and proposals.

“We see how the issue is being discussed, how all the various actors are talking about it,” Quinnipiac University pollster Doug Schwartz said, asked how he writes poll questions about policy. “And then we try to ask the question in a fair way, a clear way.”

Of the 11 polls to gauge public opinion since the immigration order was issued, each uses different verbiage to describe Trump’s order — choices that can impact the ultimate results.

For example, a Rasmussen Reports poll that found strong support for the immigration freezes was worded this way: “Do you favor or oppose a temporary block on visas prohibiting residents of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States until the federal government improves its ability to screen out potential terrorists from coming here?”

Introducing the order as something that could stop “potential terrorists” might well increase support for such a measure. Fifty-five percent of likely voters favor the proposal as outlined by Rasmussen.

Contrast that with the Quinnipiac question: “Do you support or oppose suspending all travel by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen to the U.S. for 90 days?” In that survey, a 51-percent majority opposes the temporary ban, while 46 percent support it.

2. But how the poll is conducted might be more important.

Just as with Trump’s overall approval rating, the immigration freeze appears to be more popular in polls conducted online or by automated phone calls — and less popular in surveys conducted by live phone interviewers.

Huffington Post polling director Ariel Edwards-Levy has been tracking the various polls on the issue, and the ways in which they word the questions on the immigration order. The six surveys in which the executive order earns the highest net approval — POLITICO/Morning Consult, Rasmussen, Reuters/Ipsos, Huffington Post/YouGov, Public Policy Polling and SurveyMonkey — were all conducted either online or by automated phone calls.

And the four polls with the lowest net approval for the order come from those conducted by live interviewers: Quinnipiac, CBS News, CNN/ORC and Gallup.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that the discrepancies are caused by respondents who are less willing to express support for the ban to another person over the phone. There are other key methodological differences between the surveys: Most of the online polls are conducted using panels of volunteers, which are then weighted back to the overall population.

The phone polls, on the other hand, are mostly contacted by interviewing random samples of Americans selected by the pollsters — a practice which has, for decades, been a more-recognized standard for survey research.

And it's always possible that the discrepancies are the result of random error. Each of the surveys carries a margin of error, and — and as last year's election underscores — it's not uncommon for the polls to overstate or understate support by a few points.

3. Some elements of the order are more popular than others.

While most pollsters included the various elements of the executive order into one catch-all question, the Quinnipiac poll split up the order into three questions about its most controversial components: the temporary ban on immigrants from the seven nations, another temporary freeze on refugees into the U.S. and a permanent prohibition on refugees from war-torn Syria. Schwartz, the Quinnipiac pollster, said he tries to avoid asking question that are too lengthy and was interested in exploring varying opinions about the different elements of the order.

The results are instructive. Registered voters who responded to the poll were most divided on the ban on those from the seven nations: 46 percent support it, while 51 percent oppose it.

But opposition was stronger for the temporary ban on refugees (60 percent) and ending the Syrian refugee program entirely (70 percent). That could be instructive as the courts weigh which elements of the order to allow to be implemented, if any.

“'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free' still has profound resonance with Americans," said Tim Malloy, Schwartz’s colleague at Quinnipiac. "Significant pushback on immigration tells the president that many voters are not on board with a ban on refugees and that voters are strongly opposed to holding back those most threatened: Syrian refugees."