Math experts needed. How can 85% of Democrats

[Miigwech]

20% of repubs, 49% of Independents ... add up to only 49% of Americans polled saying that trump should be impeached and removed from office? By my math, at least 60% of Americans want trump impeached and removed. Am I wrong?

[we can do it]

1. Everyone doesn't vote.

[Turbineguy]

2. Statistics.

Different than math.

[Hav]

3. It depends on the number of Dems vs R in that survey, doesn't it?

Indies are split evenly and percentage wise just a bit fewer Dems are against impeachment than Rs are for it.

[LonePirate]

4. Their scale is probably weighted something like this.

28% Democrats
32% Republicans
40% Independents

(.28 x .85) + (.32 x .2) + (.4 x .49) = .238 + .064 + .196 = .498 --> 49.8%

[boomer_wv]

5. Because

Of the proportions of each of those groups as part of the whole.

Indies being roughly 40% of the group, are split evenly.

.5*.4 = .2

Ds being roughly 30%

.3*.85 = .25

Rs being the other 30%.

.06

These are just rough and estimates of the whole, but they are close. That adds up to .51....pretty much what the polls show.

[onenote]

6. I think you are assuming that there are equal numbers of Democrats, repubs, and indies

But the conventional wisdom (based on polls) is that 26 percent of the electorate identifies as repubs, 29 percent as Democrats, and 43 percent as independents.

Weighting the calculation to reflect the above, the support for impeachment comes out to around 50 percent. Given that these numbers fluctuate and are rounded, 49% sounds accurate to me.

[Midnightwalk]

7. You can't add percentages like that.

Lets use 20% and 50% to keep arithmetic simple.

Say there are 1000 republicans and 10 independents

Thats 200 republicans and 5 independents or 205 people for impeachment. 205/1010 is close to 20%.

Say there are 10 republicans and 1000 independents. Thats 2 republicans and 500 independents or 502/1010 or around 50%

[Orrex]

8. It means that each individual Democrat is 85% percent sure that Trump is is an idiot racist fuckhead

Whereas each Republican, likewise an idiot racist fuckhead, is only 20% sure, while each Independent is 49% sure he's an idiot racist fuckhead.

The result surprises me; I would have thought that Republicans are 100% sure that he's an idiot racist fuckhead, since that's why they voted for him.

#math_is_what_i_say_it_is

[Miigwech]

9. Your math is the only math that I understand!

[Orrex]

10. LOL!