HIGH POINT, N.C., Oct. 10, 2011 – Days before President Barack Obama is scheduled to embark on a bus tour of North Carolina and Virginia, the High Point University Poll’s latest findings reveal that incumbents like the president will have a hard time gaining the votes of North Carolinians in the upcoming election season. Only 39 percent said they feel that Barack Obama deserves reelection, and less than a quarter of North Carolinians feel that most members of Congress deserve another term in office.
The October poll also found that only 33 percent of North Carolinians felt their own representative in Congress deserved reelection.
Does President Obama deserve to be reelected?
Yes – 39 percent
No – 53 percent
Don’t know/refused – 9 percent
Would you like to see most members of Congress reelected?
Yes – 23 percent
No – 63 percent
Don’t know/refused – 13 percent
Does your representative deserve to be reelected?
Yes – 33 percent
No – 40 percent
Don’t know/refused – 27 percent
“As we have seen in survey after survey, the economy is weighing heavily on people here in North Carolina, and that has created real challenges for politicians seeking reelection in 2012,” says Dr. Martin Kifer, director of the Survey Research Center. “So it’s no surprise that the president will embark on a bus tour that includes North Carolina – a crucial state in the upcoming reelection season.”
As in other recent HPU Polls, the economy and jobs were cited as the most important problems in North Carolina and the country as a whole. The two categories combined garnered 59 and 61 percent of respondents’ choices, respectively, when North Carolina residents were asked to name the most important problems.
Other findings in the poll confirmed the lack of support for elected officials and the sour view of the economy:
– President Obama’s job approval rating dropped to 36 percent – down from 41 percent in the last HPU Poll.
– Congress’s job approval rating was at 10 percent.
– Seventy percent of respondents felt that the economy in the country as a whole was getting worse rather than better; Sixty-nine percent felt the same thing about the North Carolina economy.
– Fully half (50 percent) said they believe that the jobs their community has lost will never come back.
The High Point University Survey Research Center fielded the survey from Oct. 2- 6. The responses came from 408 adults with landline and cellular telephones in North Carolina selected by a Random Digit Dial (RDD) method giving the survey a margin of sampling error of approximately 5 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional error into the findings of opinion polls.
Full results and methodological details from the survey and can be found at the Survey Research Center website, http://src.highpoint.edu, or from Dr. Martin Kifer, the center’s director, at [email protected] or 336-841-9333.
At High Point University, every student receives an extraordinary education in an inspiring environment with caring people.℠ HPU, located in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina, is a liberal arts institution with over 4,200 undergraduate and graduate students from 51 countries and 46 states at campuses in High Point and Winston-Salem. It is ranked by US News and World Report at No. 3 among Regional Colleges in the South. Forbes.com ranks HPU in the top 7 percent among “America’s Best Colleges.” Parade Magazine lists HPU in the top 25 private schools in the nation. HPU was selected in the 2010-2011 list of “Colleges of Distinction,” as well as one of the top green schools in the country by the Sierra Club. The university offers 50 undergraduate majors, 43 undergraduate minors and 10 graduate degree programs. It is accredited by the Commission of Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and is a member of the NCAA, Division I and the Big South Conference. Visit High Point University on the Web at highpoint.edu.
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Pam Haynes
Communication Specialist
336-841-9055
[email protected]