Jack Bauer 22%, Jim Long 12%

The NC Center for Voter Education released a new poll yesterday that, according to the group, shows “voter concern about the role of special interests in deciding elections and strong support for reform…”

Some more selective quotations from their press release:

• “The study finds that 68 percent of North Carolina voters favor public campaign financing for those Council of State offices…”
  

• “Voters have virtually no knowledge of many of the statewide elected officials in North Carolina and aren’t sure what these offices actually do in state government.”
  

• “There is a high level of concern over the influence of special interests in determining the outcome of elections and the conflicts of interests that potentially arise from their donations to candidates.”

• “92 percent of state voters believe that campaign contributions influence the decisions of elected officials…”“The poll was conducted statewide by the Alexandria, V.A.-based polling firm American Viewpoint from June 12-13 among 600 registered North Carolina voters and has a margin of error of 4 percent.”

This poll has some fun stuff in it. Check out the PowerPoint here. I’ll have more to say later.

Busting at the seams

In the today's N&O, you'll find a report ranking our state's traffic among the nations worst. The report proves what we all know: traffic is terrible, and with the rapid growth, particularly in this area, we can only expect traffic to get worse.

Conducted by UNC-Charlotte for a Libertarian think tank in Los Angeles, the poll encourages states to take action to ease traffic issues through "long-term investment in key corriders."

But why not invest in mass transit alternatives? It makes sense to me.

Young Americans on the Right Track

The New York Times released a poll today in collaboration with CBS News and MTV concerning young people ages 17-29 and their views on virtually every political issue. Full results can be found here.

The poll found that young Americans are more liberal than the general public and more supportive of issues like universal health care and legalizing gay marriage. However, young people for some reason are more optimistic about the War in Iraq. Twenty-seven percent of young people think things in Iraq are going well, as opposed to 23% of all adults. Also, 51% of young people say that we are likely to succeed in Iraq, while only 45% of all adults feel that way.

One upbeat result is that there is a continuing trend of young voters moving away from the Republican party and towards the Democratic party. Of those surveyed, 54% said they would vote for a Democrat in 2008, and 35% consider themselves Democrats compared to only 23% who consider themselves Republican.

Another good sign is the increasing growth of the youth vote and the fact that more and more young people are paying attention to politics. According to the poll, 58% of young people are paying at least some attention to the 2008 Presidential election and 77% say that their vote will influence who is our next President. Also, 70% said that they are likely to vote in a Presidential primary next year.

What all this says to me is that there is a growing trend among young Americans to become more politically informed and active. The fact that most young voters are drifting toward the left has to be exploited by the Democrats and used to their advantage. Barack Obama has done a great job doing this, as evidenced by his large name recognition among young voters. I just hope all those young people don't become more conservative as they grow older; it would be their loss.

Richardson showing well in Iowa

I found the chart to the right today on pollster.com that shows Bill Richardson's support growing substantially in Iowa.

The writing is a little hard to read, but I'll tell you this: Richardson is the blue line on the bottom.

Another poll by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates poll confirms Richardson's gain in Iowa.

Among likely caucus-goers, former Sen. John Edwards leads Sen. Hillary Clinton (34% to 24%) in a statewide caucus; Sen. Barack Obama trails at 17%, Richardson at 13%.

Among the "likeliest" caucus-goers -- "who attended the 2004 caucus, voted in the 2006 primary, and say they are definite to attend next year's caucus," Edwards runs at 31%, Clinton at 23%, Richardson at 18%, and Obama at 16%

Although Bill Richardson shows gains in Iowa and New Hampshire, he still trails the other major Democratic contenders significantly in the national primary polls.

Immigration Revisited

Another interesting poll popped up on PollingReport today dealing with immigration reform. It was conducted by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation on June 22-24. The poll only has one question but the results are interesting in seeing how people feel about the immigration bill in Congress. The question asks:

"As you may know, the U.S. Senate has been considering a bill to change the way the government handles the issue of illegal immigration. Based on what you have read or heard about all the proposals in the Senate immigration bill, do you favor or oppose that bill?" If oppose: "Do you oppose the Senate immigration bill MOSTLY because you think it goes too far toward helping illegal immigrants, or MOSTLY because it does not go far enough toward helping illegal immigrants?"

Thirty percent of respondents favor the bill, while 28% say it goes too far and 15% say it doesn't go far enough. The 28% who say it goes too far are presumably conservatives who aren't happy with the citizenship measure. Conversely, the 15% who say it doesn't go far enough are most likely angry at the provision that gives preference to skills and education when admitting immigrants and limits immigration in general.

As you can see, it doesn't have anywhere near widespread support, and 22% of people are still unsure as to what to think. Such a split across support, opposition, and indecision is not good when discussing a major change in immigration policy and how we should go forward in the long term.

For your blogging pleasure

PPP released a poll today regarding the effect of the rising cost of gas on North Carolina's families and their driving habits, investigating who North Carolinians feel is responsible for the pain at the pump.


Here's a quick run down:

89% = percent of NC adults who are very concerned by the high gas costs.
60% = percent who say the cost of gas has greatly affected driving habits
88% = percent of respondents who report trying to drive less
28% = percent who use alternative transportation (public transit, carpooling, walking or bicycling)
54% = respondents who do not use alt. transportation and do not intend to


These last two numbers are what I find most interesting, 89% of folks are concerned by the high cost of gas (reasonably so) and 88% report a effort to drive less (great!), but the majority of respondents will not even consider alternative transportation.

One explanation for the low rate of use of alternative transportation is that our North Carolina communities are set up for driving. If North Carolina communities had better transportation options and pedestrian-friendly communities, more people would be willing to use alternative transportation. Currently, the options are so poor that although 89% of the public is very concerned by the cost of gas, over half of the respondents, 54%, polled will not even consider alternative transportation. The perception of current mass transit systems as inefficient, inadequate, and unsafe for travelers also decreases the use of alternative transportation.

For more information as to whom North Carolinians feel is responsible for the high gas costs (hint: American oil companies and George Bush/ the War in Iraq) ....Enjoy!

New Presidential Poll

PollingReport has information about a new Newsweek presidential poll. They did a presidential matchup poll just like we did for NC, but nationwide. There's also individual results for the Democratic and Republican races.

On the Democratic side, it seems as though Hillary Clinton is dominating the field, leading Obama 43% to 27%. John Edwards trails with only 14%. It's interesting that this poll doesn't include Al Gore, which is probably a realistic scenario. That might explain why Hillary has so much support. However, my problem with the poll is that only 422 Democrats were surveyed and the MoE is +/-7%. That's a pretty huge margin of error for a national poll done by a large magazine. Although its probably accurate, it still makes Hillary's huge lead suspect.

One extremely strange fact that's easy to miss is that Michael Bloomberg was included in the Democratic field for whatever reason. Why he's in there and Al Gore isn't makes no sense to me. What's even more surprising though, is that he only received 1% support. Bloomberg was also included in the Republican field and only got 2% support. The low numbers make some sense because only registered Democrats and Republicans were included in the each party poll.

The Republican poll includes Fred Thompson, and he has a good showing, coming in second with 19%. Rudy Giuliani still leads with 27%. McCain seems to continue his downward slide, with 15%, while Mitt Romney is the only other candidate in double digits with 12%. This poll surveyed even fewer people (only 324 Republicans) and the MoE is +/-8%, theoretically negating the lead that Giuliani has over Thompson and putting them in a statistical tie. This essentially makes the poll useless because the MoE is so high.

There are a lot of results in the matchups part of the poll that I'll let you read for yourself. But, they did include Bloomberg as a third party candidate in some matchups, and he consistently got over 10%, which makes the fact that he only got 1% in the Democratic field even stranger. It looks like he steals votes from both party, but slightly more from Republicans. Whether or not that factors in to the election next year, we shall see.

One last tidbit: The Democrats win every single matchup listed, with the top three Democrats going against the top four Republicans. However, while McCain and Giuliani's numbers have been steady in the mid to lower 40s for a few months, Romney has gained about 10 points since the tracking poll began in December.

Immigration, Smoking, and Gas Poll

We released a new survey today concerning immigration, smoking, and gas prices. The complete survey and report is here, but here are the essentials.

Citizenship for Illegal Immigrants
39% support
50% oppose

Temporary Guest Worker Program
47% support
45% oppose

Basis for Admitting Immigrants
Family: 22%
Skills: 57%

The only result that really surprised was the amount of support for admitting people based on skills. I thought people valued family more but I guess it speaks to our country's priorities: rewarding people based on their merit.

When it comes to smoking, most people oppose it. Sixty-two and 58% of people said they support banning smoking in puplic places and college campuses, respectively.

As evidenced by the recent energy bill passed in the Senate, people are supportive of mandating higher fuel economy standards for car makers. Sixty-six percent of the people in our poll supported it. However, people never like taxes, so the idea of a higher gas tax to encourage conservation is seemingly a dead end, with 75% opposition.

Read the entire report and let us know your thoughts.

P.S. on Iraq issue

Another Gallup poll shows the influence of a candidates past and previous position/s on Iraq as a major factor in respondents voting choice in the upcoming 2008 election.

Concern over War in Iraq and American Dissatisfaction go hand in hand

In this graph is from a recent Gallup poll, Gallup plotted the percentages of repondents who reported Iraq, Immigration, or Fuel and oil prices as the most important issue against the percentage of those who are dissatisfied with the general direction of the country. Analysis of their June 11-14 poll offered:

"The trend in Most Important Problem since January of this year suggests that
increased public concern about fuel prices and immigration may be to blame
for
the recent downturn in Americans' mood."

However the anaylsis goes further to say that concern over fuel prices and immigration are still lower than they were in 2006, so fuel and immigration concerns are not primarily to blame. (Check the PPP blog and website in the next few days for North Caroliniansopinions about Immigration issues and the effect of gasoline on NC driving behavior!)

If you check out this graph from Gallup we see that the growing dissatifaction in the country from 2000- present follows pretty closely the growing concern over the Situation in Iraq.