The amazing number of people who know nothing about the health-care ruling

One of the most common mistakes made in political reporting is
to assume that average voter is following the daily news cycle as
closely as we are. He or she isn’t.

This
Oct. 8, 2010, photo shows the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court at the
Supreme Court. Seated from left are Associate Justices Clarence Thomas
and Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Associate
Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Standing from left
are Associate Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito Jr.
and Elena Kagan. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)The latest poll numbers from the Pew Research Center on the Supreme Court’s decision on President Obama’s health-care law are (yet another) affirmation of that fact.

Forty-five percent — yes 45 percent! — of respondents in the
Pew poll either didn’t know what the court had done in regards the
health care law (30 percent) or thought that the court had rejected most
of the provisions of the law (15 percent).

Let’s just make sure
we are all clear: Forty-five percent of people didn’t know about or were
misinformed about the most highly publicized Supreme Court case since —
at least — Bush v. Gore in 2000 that dealt with the landmark legislative accomplishment of Obama’s first term in office. That is staggering stuff.

Inside
the numbers was — not surprisingly — even more eye-opening. Among 18-
to 29-year-olds, one of the electoral pillars on which Obama’s 2008
victory was built, 43 percent didn’t know anything about the court
ruling, and other 20 percent thought the court had rejected most of the
tenets of the law. That means that roughly two in every three young
people didn’t know or were mistaken about what happened Thursday at the
court.

So, that happened. (For a full demographic breakout on who knew what about the court ruling, scroll down in this post.)

What
should you take from the Pew poll? That assuming that the electorate is
paying close attention to the political goings-on — even when they are
so seemingly high profile as the court ruling on health care — is a
mistake.

Most people — especially those who are unaffiliated or
independent voters — tend to be relatively low information voters. That
is, they don’t have all the facts on an issue — and they don’t really
care to find them out.

Sobering for those of us who watch the
political machinations on a minute-by-minute basis? Yes. But also very
important to remember when writing and analyzing the impact any given
event will have on the November election.