Poll Reviews: Presidential Hopefuls and Religion

Well it’s Monday, March 19 and being the start of the week I have picked this as a great time to review what is going on with the different polls released about the country. We have just finished the Winthrop Poll and now I want to talk a little bit about what is going on with the early election stats and opinions:

The Winthrop Poll of South Carolina residents shows Giuliani and Clinton have early edge in 2008 presidential field

ROCK HILL, S.C. –

The latest Winthrop Poll shows former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton have early leads in their parties for the 2008 presidential race in South Carolina, according to Winthrop University researchers. But many state residents still aren’t tuned into the upcoming primaries a year from now.The Winthrop Poll asked residents who they were familiar with and whether residents had favorable or unfavorable opinions of declared and potential candidates. This is the second release of The Winthrop Poll, a long-term survey initiative conducted by the Winthrop’s Social and Behavioral Research Lab to gauge South Carolina residents’ opinions. The Winthrop Poll for spring 2007 was conducted from Winthrop’s telephone survey research lab between Feb. 7 and Feb. 28, with 694 randomly selected South Carolinians age 18 and up. The results have a margin of error of plus/minus 3.72 percent.

Religion Could Stunt Romney's White House Bid:

By GARY LANGER, Director of Polling

January 29, 2007— Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the least-known of the top-tier candidates mentioned for president, the least-liked, and probably faces the greatest challenge of any of them. The issue: his religion.

In an ABC News/Washington Post poll in December, a surprisingly large number of Americans — 35 percent — said they'd be less likely to support a presidential candidate who's a Mormon. Just 3 percent were more likely to vote for a Mormon.
By contrast we saw no net negative effect of being a woman or a black candidate — fewer people were less apt to vote for such candidates — but in both cases they were canceled out by others who were more likely to support a black or a woman. Not so with a Mormon.
It'll take further polling to tease out why these compunctions exist. But we can see that it may pose a challenge to Romney in tackling them, because they seem to be coming from very different places. Americans least likely to support a Mormon candidate range across the political spectrum, including Republican and independent women and conservative Republicans, but also liberals and people with no religion.

Romney isn't the first candidate to face questions about his religion; in presidential campaigns it was notably an issue for John F. Kennedy in 1960 (as well as for Al Smith, the Happy Warrior, in 1928). In a Gallup poll in 1940, 31 percent of Americans said they wouldn't vote for a "generally well-qualified" candidate from their party who happened to be Catholic. That held, at a lower 21 or 22 percent, across the mid-50s. In May 1960, 21 percent still said they wouldn't vote for a Catholic; 71 percent said they would.

Four months later, on Sept. 12, 1960, Kennedy addressed the issue head on in a celebrated speech at the Rice Hotel in Houston: "I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me." That November he was elected president by 118,574 votes out of 68.8 million cast, the closest presidential election (by popular vote) in U.S. history.

One difference for Kennedy was the prevalence of Catholic voters — according to the post-election National Election Survey in 1961 they accounted for two in 10 voters, and Kennedy won 71 percent of them, compared with just 32 percent of non-Catholic voters. Mormons, by contrast, account for barely more than 1 percent of the U.S. population.