Red Clay Citizen

Polling the Death Penalty

With today's NC Supreme Court ruling clearing the way for capital punishment to resume, I thought I'd revisit the polling Civitas has done on the question of the death penalty in North Carolina.

We polled it three different ways last year and all received at least 60 percent support:

Most recently in August 2008:

Do you support the death penalty for first-degree murder in North Carolina
Yes - 64%
No - 24%
Not Sure - 12%

April 2008:

Do you support the death penalty in North Carolina?
Yes - 60%
No - 27%
Not Sure - 12%

The highest results for the death penalty came when we asked in July 2008 on something that isn't allowed:

Do you support or oppose the death penalty for raping a child?
Support - 65%
Oppose - 24%
Not Sure - 11%

When digging into the numbers, African-Americans are just about the only demographic who says they are opposed to the death penalty (34-52% Aug 08).  It is favored by a plurality of Democrats (49-37%), and a majority of both Republicans (82-9%) and unaffiliateds (67-20%).

This issue is now back before the Governor and the General Assembly.  Governor Perdue could instruct the Department of Corrections to resume executions or the General Assembly could attempt to pass a moratorium (our ban).

We'll poll it again next month, but I doubt we'll see much difference in the numbers.

Civitas Poll: Burr 35, Cooper 34

Our poll this month has incumbent US Senator Richard Burr holding onto a slim one point lead over potential Democratic challenger, Attorney General Roy Cooper 35% to 34%.  32% of voters say they are undecided at this point.

We also asked favorability ratings of each.

Burr has 33% favorable, 18% unfavorable for a net +15 favorability rating.
49.5% of voters either had no opinion or had never heard of Burr.

For Cooper, he has 28% favorable, 8% unfavorable for a net of +20.
64% of voters either had no opinion or had never heard of Cooper.

So basically, the status quo continues to rule this race.  It's a toss up, and probably still will be so until one of the two starts advertising.  But since neither candidate is well known, it's a pretty good barometer of the generic ballot tendencies of NC voters.

Full results and crosstabs here.

When a Furlough is Really a Pay Cut

I love all the spin coming out of Raleigh and the governor's office today that Gov. Perdue's actions today were a "furlough" of state employees and teachers.

It most certainly was not.

It was a pay cut, plain and simple.

Employees are not forced to take the time off, they are just granted an additional 10 hours of flex time to take at their leisure.  There's nothing mandatory to make them use it or keep them away.  But the government is going to take 0.5% of their pay regardless.

Talk to any of the other workers in the private sector who are getting furloughed right now.  They are told to take a week off and aren't going to get paid for it.  Plants close, offices close, there's no way to go to work.  That's a furlough.

This is Gov. Perdue reducing the state's payroll by 0.5% and giving the workers the option of taking time off.

Apparently, the Governor has probably done some polling and found that furloughs play better in public than pay cuts for teachers and state employees.  Like when we polled last month asking about cutting salaries for state employees:

In order to close the state's $3 billion budget deficit, do you support or oppose saving $480 million by cutting salaries for state employees who earn more than $30,000 by 5%?
Support - 23%
Oppose - 68%
Not Sure - 9%

We didn't poll furloughing state employees, but I'd bet good money it polls higher than that.

Civitas Poll: Voters Reject Senate Tax Plan

Voters aren't took keen on the NC Senate's plan to begin taxing some services while reducing overall tax rates according to our April poll.  And are even more opposed to it when they know that it raises taxes by $500 million.

Brian Balfour's analysis of the Senate package is here.

When asked if they approve or disapprove of a plan that would reduce the sales tax rate but broaden the types of services that are taxed, 50% disapproved of the idea.  Only 33% approved.

In fact, more people responded that they Strongly Disapproved (38.5%) of the idea than the total number of approvals.

We then asked if they approved or disapproved of this plan if they knew it would raise taxes by $500 million and 66% said they disapproved. Only 19% approved.

One interesting crosstab that jumped out at me, support for taxing services is directly tied to age.  The older you are, the more resistant to expanding to services you are.  50% of 18-25 year olds approve, but only 27% of over 65 year olds do.

Full results and crosstabs here.

Majority of Americans View Tea Parties Favorably

From Rasmussen Reports:

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans have a favorable view of the “tea parties” held nationwide last week, including 32% who say their view of the events is Very favorable.

Thirty-three percent (33%) hold an unfavorable opinion of the tea parties according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.

Also interestingly from their survey, 25% of people said they knew someone who attended one of the events.

This seems to fly in the face of some reports that have tried to extrapolate roughly 250,000 people nationwide in attendance.

Civitas Poll: Legislative Leaders Unknown

This probably comes as little surprise to many of us, but is disappointing nonetheless -- the leadership of the General Assembly are virtually unknown to the vast majority of North Carolinians.

We tested the name ID of the Republican and Democratic leadership of both the House and Senate and here are the results:

Opinion of Mark Basnight
Very Favorable – 4%
Somewhat Favorable – 8%
Somewhat Unfavorable – 4%
Very Unfavorable – 3%
No Opinion – 18%
Not Aware – 63%

Opinion of Tony Rand:
Very Favorable – 3%
Somewhat Favorable – 5%
Somewhat Unfavorable – 3%
Very Unfavorable – 2%
No Opinion – 23%
Not Aware – 64%

Opinion of Phil Berger:
Very Favorable – 1%
Somewhat Favorable – 6%
Somewhat Unfavorable – 2%
Very Unfavorable – 1%
No Opinion – 22%
Not Aware – 68%

Opinion of Joe Hackney:
Very Favorable – 2%
Somewhat Favorable – 6%
Somewhat Unfavorable – 1%
Very Unfavorable – 2%
No Opinion – 21%
Not Aware – 67%

Opinion of Paul Stam:
Very Favorable – 2%
Somewhat Favorable – 4%
Somewhat Unfavorable – 2%
Very Unfavorable – 1%
No Opinion – 16%
Not Aware – 75%

Kinda sad that less than 1 in 5 North Carolina voters know who the arguably most powerful person in the state is.  Basnight has been Senate President for 9 terms now and yet 63% of voters have no clue who he is.

88% of voters are unaware of have no opinion of the Speaker of the House.

Does this mean that people just don't pay attention to state government, or does this mean that people are unaware of state government because the media is failing in its job to cover it?

I think it's some of both.

Full release and crosstabs here.

Civitas Poll: Cooper 41, Burr 38

In a hypothetical 2010 matchup for US Senate, Attorney General Roy Cooper leads incumbent US Senator Richard Burr by three points 41-38.

Burr is seen more favorably by voters than Cooper, yet still trails in the head-to-head matchup.

The questions:

“If the election for United States Senate were held today and the candidates were republican Richard Burr and democrat Roy Cooper, for which would you be voting?  If not sure/unsure/refused…which candidates are you leaning toward: republican Richard Burr or democrat Roy Cooper?”

Burr- 25%
Lean Burr- 13%
Lean Cooper- 8%
Cooper- 33%
Not Sure- 21%

“I am now going to read you a list of names.  After I read each name, please tell me if you have heard of that person and then if you have, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of that person.” 

“Opinion of Richard Burr?”

Very Favorable- 13%
Somewhat Favorable- 24%
Somewhat Unfavorable- 7%
Very Unfavorable- 5%
No Opinion- 31%
Not Aware- 19%

“Opinion of Roy Cooper?”

Very Favorable- 11%
Somewhat Favorable- 18%
Somewhat Unfavorable- 3%
Very Unfavorable- 3%
No Opinion- 28%
Not Aware- 38%

Full press release and crosstabs here.

Civitas Poll: Only Half of Voters Know Who Controls General Assembly

This month we revised a series of questions from our July 2008 poll where we tested voters if they knew which party control various branches of government: Congress, Governor, NC House and NC Senate.

The good news, the numbers are getting better.  The bad news, it's still pretty bad.

Which party controls Congress?
Democratic - 77% (+26 from July 2008)
Republican - 9% (-10)
Not Sure - 14% (-16)

Looks like the November elections did provide at least some clarity at the Congressional level about who is in charge. 

Governor's office?
Democratic - 69% (+8)
Republican - 12% (-2)
Not Sure - 18% (-7)

Perdue's election provided some increased recognition about who is in control, but still 3 out of 10 voters don't know either that she's a Democrat or the Democrats are in charge.

NC House
Democratic - 50% (+1)
Republican - 11% (-6)
Not Sure - 39% (+4)

Only half of voters know the Democrats are in control.  If you figure that the 11% of people who said Republican, guessed and got in wrong, an equal number probably guessed and got it right, so the real percentage of voters who know the Democrats are in charge is closer to 40%. 

NC Senate
Democratic - 50% (+10)
Republican - 12% (-3)
Not Sure - 37% (-7)

So it's gotten considerably better in the Senate, an increase of 10 points since July, but still only half got it right. And remember, we poll people who have voted in at least 1 of the last 3 General Elections, so it's not like we're randomly sampling the population here, these are actual voters who don't know what's going on.

Is it that people don't pay attention to the NC General Assembly, the media does a poor job of covering it?  Or a bit of both?

Full release and crosstabs here.

Civitas Poll: Favorablility Ratings for Obama, Hagan, Perdue

We did job approval ratings last month on the these three newly elected positions, so this month we decided to do favorable/unfavorable ratings to see if we get much of a difference.  We may alternate back and forth in the coming months to see if voters separate their feelings for a person with their job performance.

Nevertheless, on to the numbers:

We asked, "I am now going to read you a list of names. After I read each name, please tell me if you have heard of that person, and then if you have, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of that person."

Barack Obama:
Very Favorable - 42%
Somewhat Favorable - 22%
Somewhat Unfavorable - 13%
Very Unfavorable - 11%
No Opinion - 12%

A net favorable rating for Obama of 64% is fairly strong especially given the contentiousness beginning to develop in regards to his budget and spending.  We were in the field before the teleprompter gaffes occurred, but his numbers are still fairly high.
Interestingly, of the 130 African-Americans that were in our survey, not a single one gave Obama a very or somewhat unfavorable rating.  Only 4 said they had no opinion.

Bev Perdue
Very Favorable - 22%
Somewhat Favorable - 36%
Somewhat Unfavorable - 12%
Very Unfavorable - 8%
No Opinion - 20%
Not Aware - 3%

Net favorable ratings of 58%, unfavorable of 20% gives Gov. Perdue a good working margin to go into tough budget negotiations.  We were in the field as her budget was coming out, so this may reflect some of her budget proposals, but more than likely most of the analysis of her budget was done after our survey.

Kay Hagan
Very Favorable - 17%
Somewhat Favorable - 30%
Somewhat Unfavorable - 12%
Very Unfavorable - 10%
No Opinion - 25%
Not Aware - 6%

Hagan, unlike her two other high ranking Democrats, has favorables under 50%, coming in at a net 47%.  Some of this is from the fairly high "No Opinion" category which reinforces the thought that people weren't exactly voting FOR her last November as much as they were voting AGAINST Elizabeth Dole and/or the Republicans.
Hagan also may be feeling the force of the anti-card check movement that is pressuring her very hard to stand with our state's businesses and against radical unionization for our state.
Either way, not as good as numbers as a freshman Senator thought to still be in a honeymoon period should have.

Full release and all the crosstabs are here.

Semantics

Seems to be a lot of discussion today (Dome 1, 2, 3, 4 and G'boro N&R) on Elon's poll results on the marriage amendment.  A lot of the discussion centers on the varying poll results between Elon's poll and ours.  I would argue there are differences in the wordings of the questions that do not make the questions the same.  We polled what would be asked according to legislation on a referendum on the subject.  Elon did not.  Slight differences, but they matter.

If you read the text of H 361, the referendum that would be placed before the voters states:

The question to be used in the voting systems and ballots shall be:
  
 "[ ] FOR [ ] AGAINST
Constitutional Amendment to provide that marriage between a man and a woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state."

Our poll question asked:  Do you support or oppose a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman?

Elon asked:  Do you support or oppose a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage?

Elon polled a question that is not at all what is stated in the referendum.  It's a difference of semantics, but one that could yield differing results.