Current Issues and the 2000 Elections:

A Survey of Virginia Residents

Conducted October 22-November 5, 1999             Contact: Stephen Medvic                                                                                               smedvic@odu.edu

• Texas Gov. George W. Bush would easily win Virginia’s February Republican presidential primary. Sixty-five percent of respondents favored Bush, compared with 14.5 percent who picked Sen. John McCain.
• Regarding campaign finance reform, responses clearly reflect a cynicism that most Americans harbor toward the political system and politicians, Medvic said.
• Asked whether they thought their delegate had ever voted a certain way on legislation in exchange for a campaign contribution, statewide more than 46 percent said yes; 24 percent said they weren’t sure. Only 29.3 percent said they didn’t think their delegates favored contributors.
• Bush also would win Virginia in the presidential election if it were held today, according to the results. He holds a substantial lead over potential opponents, including Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley.

Results from statewide analyses have a sampling error of +/-2.8 at the 95 percent confidence level (though individual survey responses may have lower sampling errors). This means that in 95 out of 100 samples, the results on any given question would fall within plus or minus 2.8 percentage points of the results from this survey. Statewide results were weighted to account for over-sampling SHR, which makes up 15 percent of Virginia’s total population.

Results from SHR respondents have a sampling error of +/- 4.0 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level; those from the rest of Virginia have a sampling error of +/- 3.9 percent points (95 percent confidence).

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FINDINGS ON CAMPAIGN FINANCE

Campaign finance was a topic of much discussion during the 1999 elections in Virginia. Statewide, 78.5 percent of the respondents believe that there is too much spending in Virginia elections, 1.4 percent believe there is too little spending and 11.7 percent say the right amount of money is being spent. Democrats (84.8%) are more likely than Republicans (74.6%) to believe there is too much spending in Virginia elections, while independents split the difference at 77.5 percent. In SHR, 82.6 percent of the respondents believed there was too much spending; 77.8 percent of the rest of the state were in agreement.

As for reforming the system, 74.8 percent of respondents statewide would like to see limits placed on how much individuals and groups can contribute to campaigns, while 22.1 percent are opposed to contribution limits. Democrats are only slightly more likely than Republicans to favor limits (79.6% and 73%, respectively; 67% of independents favor limits).

In SHR, the numbers are nearly identical with 74.3 percent favoring limits and 23.4 opposing them. There is also no party difference in support of contribution limits; 74.4 percent of Republicans, 70 percent of independents, and 74.8 percent of Democrats favor limits.

We asked respondents whether or not they thought their delegate had ever promised to vote a certain way on legislation in exchange for a campaign contribution. Statewide, only 29.3 percent said no while 46.6 percent said yes (23.6 percent said they did not know). Self-proclaimed liberals were more likely than conservatives to believe that a quid pro quo had occurred (53.5% and 47.5% respectively). In SHR, a majority of respondents (51.5%) believed their delegate had traded a vote for a contribution while 25.9 percent did not believe so. In the rest of the state, 45.8 percent of respondents thought a vote had been traded while 29.9 percent did not.

These results clearly reflect a cynicism that most Americans harbor toward the political system and politicians. Nevertheless, when roughly half of all respondents believe that campaign contributions buy influence (specifically in terms of the way representatives cast votes) and when three-quarters want limits on such contributions, the campaign finance system in Virginia appears to be in need of serious reform.

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FINDINGS ON THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FACING THE STATE

Nearly a third (32.9%) of registered voters in Virginia believe that education is the most important issue facing the state (see Table 1). The only other issues to receive double figures were transportation (17.5%) and taxes (11.1%). In SHR, 41.1 percent thought education was most important, followed by transportation (15.4%), taxes (12.3%), and crime (6.5%).

Education was also the highest ranking second most important issue for Virginians (23.1%). This means that 56 percent of the respondents mentioned education as either the first or second most important issue facing the state. In SHR, 19.7 percent of the respondents said education was second most important and 15.6 percent said transportation.

Table 1: Top Four Most Important Issues Facing the Commonwealth (Statewide)

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FINDINGS ON THE OPINIONS ON TRANSPORTATION

One issue that seemed particularly salient during the 1999 elections was transportation. Our survey suggests that transportation is seen as only a moderate problem in the state and SHR respondents did not see it as a more pressing problem than those in the rest of the state. On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being no problem at all and 10 being a big problem), Virginia respondents gave transportation a mean score of 5.78; SHR respondents had a mean score of 5.83 while those from the rest of the state had a 5.77. Unfortunately, we do not have a sub-sample of Northern Virginia residents with which to compare these results. Presumably, they would have considered transportation to be a significantly bigger problem than did respondents from the rest of the state.

Partisanship did not account for difference either. Statewide, independents rating the transportation problem at 5.17 on the 10 point scale while Republicans averaged 5.82 and Democrats 5.91. Interestingly, in SHR, independents found transportation to be more of a problem than members of the two parties. Independents gave the problem a score of 6.58 while Republicans rated it at 5.86 and Democrats 5.76.

With regard to Governor Gilmore’s recent plan to spend $2.5 billion to improve transportation, a third of Virginians (32.9%) could not say whether they thought the plan spends too much, not enough, or just about the right amount. Nevertheless, another third (32.6%) believed that the plan spends just about the right amount on transportation while 25.3 percent thought it was not enough. In SHR, 35.5 percent could not offer an opinion, 26 percent thought the spending plan was just about right, and 27.7 percent thought it was not enough.

Of those who said the plan spends the right amount of money, 38.9 percent knew that the plan allocates "between $2 billion and $4 billion;" a quarter of the respondents could not hazard a guess, and 11 percent thought it spent "over $4 billion." On the other hand, of those who thought the plan did not spend enough, 38.8 percent believed it spent less than $2 billion while 35.3 percent knew roughly how much was spent. When those who believe the plan does not spend enough are combined with the few who believe the plan spends just about the right amount but who also incorrectly believe that the plan spends over $4 billion, one could make the argument that 29.7 percent of Virginians would support more spending on transportation, 36.1 percent do not want more spending (including those who want less spending) and 34.1 are unsure.

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FINDINGS ON THE GOVERNOR'S APPROVAL RATING

Statewide, Governor Gilmore enjoys a 68.7 percent approval rating. In SHR, that rating is slightly higher at 71 percent; the rest of the state gives the governor a rating of 68.3 percent. When approval rating is crosstabulated with party identification, we find that 82.5 percent of Republicans, 63.1 percent of independents, and an impressive 54.7 percent of Democrats approval of the way the governor is handling his job (see Table 2).

Table 2: Governor Gilmore’s Approval Rating

Statewide, Governor Gilmore is seen as most effective in dealing with taxes (29.2%) and education (6.1%). On the other hand, 11.9 percent of respondents believed he was least effective when it comes to education and another 8.9 percent said taxes. In SHR, 28.9 percent said the governor was most effective at handling taxes and 7.5 percent said education. Education was seen as his least effective policy area (13.3%) followed by taxes (8.6%).

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FINDINGS ON GOP PRESIDENTAL PRIMARY

Virginia’s Republican presidential primary is scheduled for February 29, 2000. We asked those who planned to vote in that primary whom they favored. Also of some note is the difference among the preferences of these groups. Among Republicans who plan to vote in the primary, 70.2 percent prefer Bush while 13 percent prefer McCain. Independents also prefer Bush to McCain with 62.8 percent of them supporting the former and 14 percent the latter. Finally, even a majority of Democrats who plan to vote in the February primary favor Bush over McCain, but with less wide a margin (51.3% to 20.4%). Sixty-five (65) percent said George W. Bush, followed by John McCain with 14.5 percent and Steve Forbes with 4.5 percent (8.2% were undecided; see Table 5). Women respondents who said they planned to vote in the primary were more likely than men to support Bush (68.4% of women versus 60.3% of men support Bush) and men were far more supportive of McCain (21.3% of men and 9,5% of women support McCain).

In SHR, McCain’s support is higher, but not outside the margin of error (see Table 5). Sixty point eight (60.8) percent of SHR respondents who plan to vote in the primary favor Bush while 16.3 percent support McCain. The relatively minor increase in support for McCain among

Table 5: GOP Presidential Primary Preferences

                          Note: Totals do not equal 100% because Pat Buchanan was included in the survey but                             dropped from this analysis.

SHR residents is surprising given the military presence in this area. Nevertheless, the commanding lead that George W. Bush has over his opponents in other parts of the country holds in SHR as well.

The support for Bush is even stronger than it first appears. Nearly one-third (30.2%) of his supporters are undecided as to their second choice and only 26 percent would support McCain. In fact, 96 percent (109 out of 114) of McCain’s second place votes come from Bush supporters (see Table 6). Of those whose first choice is McCain, however, 60.6 percent favor Bush as a second choice. In fact, 64.6 percent of Forbes supporters, 96 percent of Gary Bauer supporters, and 40.8 percent of Alan Keyes supporters favor Bush as a second choice. Only Orrin Hatch supporters do not overwhelmingly support Bush as a second choice (21.2 percent versus 21.2 percent who would favor Keyes and 21.2 percent who are undecided). In other words, Bush is clearly the second favorite choice of those supporting other candidates while no other candidate is so consistently a second favorite. Thus, when single digit candidates begin dropping out of the race, Bush is poised to pick up the vast majority of their support.

Table 6: Raw Numbers of First and Second Place Votes for GOP Presidential Nomination (Statewide)

* 109 of McCain’s 114 second place votes came from respondents who favor Bush as their first choice.

5 Results for the questions about GOP primary preferences have a slightly higher sampling error than other questions in the survey because the number of people responding to these questions (and, thus, the sample size) decreased as a result of the filter question concerning respondents’ plans to vote in the primary. Six hundred and forty-six (646) out of 1219 statewide answered the primary questions while 332 out of 603 in SHR did the same. Sampling error, therefore, is a maximum of +/-3.9 percentage points for statewide results and +/-5.4 for SHR. In actuality, the margin of error is smaller than that because the responses vary from the assumption of a 50/50 split. For questions on this matter, feel free to contact the principal investigator.

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METHODOLOGY

From October 22 to November 5, 1999 the Social Science Research Center at Old Dominion University conducted a survey of registered voters in Virginia. The sampling frame (i.e., those with a chance to be included in the sample) consisted of a two strata set of 27,000 listed, residential phone numbers in Virginia (9500 from South Hampton Roads and 17,500 from the rest of the state), which were purchased from Affordable Samples, Inc. of Old Greenwich, Connecticut. The sample was drawn randomly from those numbers. A screening question regarding voter registration status was asked of those that answered the phone. Only those respondents who said they were at least 18 years old and were registered to vote were included in the sample. The final sample consisted of 603 residents from SHR (defined as the cities of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Chesapeake) and 616 from the rest of the state; the total number of respondents was 1219.

Results from statewide analyses have a sampling error of +/-2.8 at the 95 percent confidence level (though individual survey responses may have lower sampling errors). This means that in 95 out of 100 samples, the results on any given question would fall within plus or minus 2.8 percentage points of the results from this survey. Statewide results were weighted to account for oversampling SHR, which makes up 15 percent of Virginia’s total population.

Results from SHR respondents have a sampling error of +/- 4.0 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level; those from the rest of Virginia have a sampling error of +/- 3.9 percent points (95% confidence).

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