So what did we learn from Tuesday’s elections? And what lessons should Democrats and Republicans draw from the results?
The big races resulted in Republican wins in the gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, and the first win by a Democrat this century for the Congressional district that comprises most of northern New York State.
Read all of John Zogby’s take on Tuesday’s elections at Forbes.com.
This may be an off-year election, but two governor’s races and one congressional district are making national news. From my perspective, there will be three themes coming out of Tuesday’s governor races in New Jersey and Virginia, and the election to fill a vacant House seat in northern New York state.
First, most elections are seen as a referendum on the president, and that’s especially true for Barack Obama, who in his first year in office is taking up major issues. Second, two of the races, for New Jersey governor and New York’s 23rd Congressional District seat, include third-party candidates, and how well they do will have significance. Third, the congressional election is splitting the national Republican Party, with some big names in the GOP backing the third-party candidate.
Read all of John Zogby’s thoughts on next week’s elections at Forbes.com.
We recently included several winning Top Question Tuesday selections on an interactive poll. Stay tuned to this blog as we’ll be releasing the results over the next several weeks! And don’t forget to submit your own nominations for Top Question Tuesday using the box on the right of this blog.
One question asked respondents if they couldn’t live in the US or US territories anymore, which area of the world would they choose for their new home. Overall, 24% of those surveyed selected Australia/New Zealand, 19% selected Canada, 17% said Western Europe, 16% were not sure, and 9% selected the Caribbean. All other options (Central America, Mexico, South America, North Africa, Southern Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Antarctica) received less than 3% of the total.
Age, race, gender, education and whether one lived in a large city, small city, suburb or rural area had minimal impact on the region or country selected. Progressives and liberals were more likely than average to favor Canada, with 36% of progressives and 33% of liberals selecting this country. Conservatives and very conservatives were more likely than average to favor Australia/New Zealand, with 38% of conservatives and 40% of very conservatives selecting this region. This pattern was also seen with Democrats and Republicans, with 30% of Democrats selecting Canada and 36% of Republicans selecting Australia/New Zealand.
If you could no longer live in the US, where would you move and why?
The November election is fast approaching and multiple races are gaining steam. One of those battles is a special election in our own neighborhood, New York’s 23th Congressional District, where a three-way race features Democrat Bill Owens, a Republican Dede Scozzafava, and one Doug Hoffman, who failed to secure Republican nomination and is now running as a Conservative Party candidate. However, this congressional race raises a lot of passion all over the country as well, with prominent Republicans, such as Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin taking opposing sides, and many notable commentators weighing in.
According to some commentators, the race is important because it might be a sign of things to come in the next election. The congressional seat in question has been in Republican hands for over a hundred years. If it turned blue, it would, at the very least, diminish some Democratic anxieties regarding the next election. However, many commentators also see the race as a gauge of the strength of conflicting strategic and ideological currents within Republican Party, with one side arguing for moderation and a move to the center, and the other side arguing for less compromise on principles and more ideological clarity. However, the interpretation of this election as a clash of visions has also been challenged.
Are you following this race? Do you think it will be a reliable sign of the things to come in 2010? Which strategy do you think would bring Republicans more power: moving towards the center or articulating a clearer ideology at the cost of moving away from the center? Do you think the importance of that narrative has been exaggerated?
We recently included several winning Top Question Tuesday selections on an interactive poll. Stay tuned to this blog as we’ll be releasing the results over the next several weeks! And don’t forget to submit your own nominations for Top Question Tuesday using the box on the right of this blog.
One question asked whether respondents pay more, less, or about the same amount of attention to local political races (such as mayoral elections) compared to national political races. Overall, 8% of the respondents said they paid more attention to local races, 39% said they paid less attention to local races, and 52% paid the same amount of attention to local and national races.
Results did not vary widely across most demographics. Those with a college degree or more were slightly more likely (44%) to say they paid less attention to local political races, as were those living in the suburbs (45%), and those who are single (51%). No group was significantly more likely to say they paid more attention to local political races.
How much attention do you give to local political races? Are certain types of local races more interesting to you than others? Do you feel there is a strong relationship between local politics in your area and national politics?
We ask some pretty interesting questions here at Zogby International. And, I must say, we get some pretty interesting answers. You, our faithful panelists and readers, also ask us some pretty interesting questions in return. However there’s one question that comes up a lot. It’s something that many of you want to know. And it goes something like this:
“Hey, you people at Zogby, I enjoy your surveys but –What’s up with those wacky demographics?”
If you’ve taken more than one or two of our surveys, you know exactly what I’m talking about, right? Are you a WalMart shopper? If so, how often do you shop there? Are you a NASCAR fan? Do you consider yourself a citizen of your city or town, the U.S. or the planet earth? And on one memorable survey, we even asked if you were a tree what kind of a tree would you be? We ask standard demographics of course, questions you’d see on any other survey, age, race, income, education, etc. but those are what you’d expect, and here at Zogby we’re proud of being ahead of the curve and, to mix my metaphors, sometimes that means thinking outside the box.
Essentially we’re trend spotters, I can’t count the number of meetings here at Zogby where we discuss trends in one form or another, and in fact it would probably be safe to say we talk about trends at nearly every meeting. We’re looking for what’s happening, and, just as importantly, we’re looking for who’s making it happen. As with any of the more standard demographic questions, we are, to put it simply, grouping people based on commonalities and differences. When we have groups of people, versus just an individual, we can say something about what the group as a whole thinks. We can determine how America views the President or if a majority of beer drinkers prefer Guinness to Coors. It’s the same with the wacky questions.
Take yourself as an example. You’re not just your age, or your race, or your education, you’re so much more than that. Your opinions and feelings have been shaped by your family, by where and how you grew up. You’re as much a product of your generation, the Woodstockers, or the Nikes, as you are of your geographic location, as much a product of your birth order, as you are of your gender, all of these and more come together and create the glasses through which you see the world.
WalMart shoppers and NASCAR fans have proven to primarily vote more conservatively, so when we see this strong cohort move, we know that we are seeing a shift that maybe we wouldn’t have otherwise spotted.
And what about that planet citizenship question? Well, much of Mr. Zogby’s recent work has to do with America’s First Globals™, who often agree that they see themselves as citizens of planet earth. These are the people who are likely to have passports, and who are just as likely to tell you that their best friend lives in Belarus, as in Frackville. This question was one of the predictive identifiers for this generation, and as they are the ones we will one day turn this nation over to, we here at Zogby agree that knowing what they think, and how, will help us follow them into the future.
Do you have an idea for an emerging trend? Leave a comment and let us know or submit a question in the ‘contact us’ box on the right hand side of the blog!
Written by Karen Scott, Managing Editor, Senior Analyst at Zogby International. In this role, she oversees the team that creates Zogby International’s surveys, scientific reports of survey results, and research papers. Karen has half a decade of experience with Zogby and has played an integral role working with hundreds of clients ranging from political activists to consumer trends.
With all the recent hoopla surrounding the releases of The Beatles Rock Band video game and the Fab Four’s re-mastered back catalogue, you would think that every single breathing soul alive worships at the altar of John, Paul, George and Ringo.
However, according to a Zogby Interactive survey conducted last week, about one in five people actually say they do not like The Beatles. OK, so maybe that’s not an earth-shattering number, but still it’s substantial enough to warrant a closer look. Just who are these blasphemous people that don’t dig peace, love, and reenacted acid trips? I had to find out.
Well, I suppose we should start with the obvious. Republicans and Conservatives (30% each) are the two most likely groups to say they do not like our beloved Beatles, whereas Liberals (9%) and Democrats (14%) are among the least likely to say so. Maybe if we asked about Ted Nugent or the Charlie Daniels Band things would have shaken out differently.
It should come as no surprise that the Woodstock generation (18%) is the least likely age cohort to say they don’t like The Beatles, but I found it somewhat surprising that the Privates (25%) and the Nikes (25%) were dead even in their disdain, and that First Globals™ were not far behind (23%). Perhaps, as the decades roll on the band’s influence on the younger generations has waned a bit, or maybe the cynicism of said generations has run so amuck that they can’t even deem it cool to call themselves fans of probably the greatest band that ever existed.
Another semi-obvious tidbit, at least to me, is that college graduates (18%) are less likely than those without college degrees (25%) to say they like The Beatles. Because I mean really, if you weren’t actually alive during the comeuppance of The Beatles, chances are you discovered them in some black light illuminated dorm room whilst having your mind blown by “Across the Universe.”
In keeping with The Beatles theme of world-wide harmony, respondents who consider themselves residents of the planet earth (11%) are much less likely to say they don’t like The Beatles than are those who identify their residence as their city or town (24%) or America (25%), but the lads’ message doesn’t appear to translate evenly among the races, as we find that African-Americans (28%) and Hispanics (24%) are more likely than whites (20%) and Asians (16%) to not dig the vibes the band is laying down.
And finally while those who practice Transcendental Meditation were admittedly underrepresented, we find that Protestants (24%) and Catholics (22%) are more likely to dislike The Beatles than are Jewish respondents (12%) and followers of other religions (15%), as are Born Again Christians (28%) vs. Non-Born Again Christians (20%). Must have been all that satanic backwards message stuff.
- Post contributed by Phil Vanno, a Writer/Editor at Zogby International who once listened to “Strawberry Fields Forever” 50 times in a row and considered walking down the aisle to “All You Need is Love.” Phil’s opinion in no way represents that of Zogby International.
Welcome to this week’s edition of Top Question Tuesday. Last week’s winning question asked people if they plan to get the H1N1 vaccination (and won only by 2 points!). We’ll put this question on an upcoming interactive survey and blog about the results soon.
This week’s user-submitted survey questions are below. The questions are shortened to save space on our blog post, but these are the basic ideas. Take a look though and then vote for the question you’d most like to see on the next Zogby Interactive survey. As a reminder, if you’d like to submit a question to be considered for a Zogby survey, use the “contact us” box on the right of the page. And if you’d like to join Zogby’s interactive panel to answer questions similar to these, click here.
1. Do you agree or disagree that Afghanistan can be a liberal democracy?
2. What technology do you upgrade most often? Mp3 player, cell phone, digital camera, laptop, gaming system (Xbox, PlayStation, etc.), I don’t own these types of technology
3. A new study by the London School of Economics found that 40% of pregnancies worldwide are unintended. Researchers suggest that if there were better family planning services, there would be a significant drop in unplanned births and huge amounts of CO2 would be saved, an equivalent of 6 times the annual emissions of the US. In short, keep population down, keep emissions down. Do you agree or disagree that there should be a federally funded program that aims to decrease unplanned births in an effort to decrease emissions?
Loading ...This evening President Obama will address a joint session of Congress with the goal of pushing forward comprehensive health care reform. Some commentators have argued that no speech can resolve the conflicting positions behind the opposition to the existing plans; others have been more optimistic and have suggested points and approaches that would need to be included in order for the speech to be effective.
What are your expectations of President Obama’s speech: do you think it will be something special or more of the same? What issues would you like addressed and explained? And, for those joining the discussion after the speech, what were your impressions?
For decades, the U.S. has moved away from being a nation that manufactured products to one that buys things that are made somewhere else. Given that model, our economy is very dependent on consumption through retail sales to spur growth and profit.
Surveys we have conducted at Zogby International continue to show American society moving away from that model. We are experiencing a paradigm shift that rejects the necessity of owning the next great new thing, and instead embraces satisfaction through relationships, leisure activities, volunteerism, self-expression and spiritual fulfillment. The latest evidence of this came in a series of questions we asked to more than 40,000 U.S. adults in a July interactive survey.
Read all of John Zogby’s article on how Americans are choosing to live with less at Forbes.com.
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