We've conducted our fair share of surveys of Members of Congress on issues. Most offices have a policy of not responding to surveys, so the reason behind a non-response is ambiguous. Soo....

If you are conducting a survey of, say, House Republicans, and you want to know how many won't acknowledge Biden has won, you need a point of comparison. A rough measure would be to ask the same question of House Democrats.

This wouldn't be equivalent, but it could give you a sense of how many people are not answering because they are avoiding the question versus how many don't answer surveys. You could also look to prior survey response rates, which would be a better metric (if you've surveyed b4).

When we've done this, we look to member press releases and performed google searches to try to make sure our data is solid. Even then, response rates are very low except when we ask things like "will you go to Trump's inauguration," and that's usu. b/c the press are asking too.

The question that's being asked here, "How many congressional Republicans will acknowledge the obvious-to-all winner of the presidential election" is a smart question. They all (probably) should have tweeted/issued a press release acknowledging Biden.

I like the @washingtonpost story by @pkcapitol + @sfcpoll. Where it gets bumpy for me is where they assert 90% of Republicans won't say who won the election."

According to the story, "70 percent of Republican lawmakers did not acknowledge The Post’s questions as of Friday evening." That does not *necessarily* mean 90% won't acknowledge who won the election, b/c many Reps won't answer surveys (even from journalists).

I hope the Post reporters keep digging and get everyone on record. I hope this becomes a litmus test to identify which congressional Republicans will publicly acknowledge an obvious reality. The survey is a good start, but right now the story overreaches a bit on one point.

I got a Q about why do I care. Clearly I'm sympathetic to Biden being acknowledged the winner. I also care a lot about journalistic accuracy and properly understanding Congress. I'm writing this b/c I can do so without having my motives dismissed.