CM Research Institute Releases First Results of Suffolk, USA Today Poll
Voters hold their local politicians and institutions in significantly higher regard than their national counterparts, according to Catholic Memorial poll questions incorporated into a recently conducted Suffolk University/USA Today national poll.
The poll results are the latest effort in the partnership between Catholic Memorial's newly established Research Institute for Politics and Public Policy and Suffolk University and the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
The poll results are the latest effort in the partnership between Catholic Memorial's newly established Research Institute for Politics and Public Policy and Suffolk University and the Suffolk University Political Research Center.
While 64 percent of poll respondents hold an unfavorable view of the U.S. Congress, 61 percent say that they approve or strongly approve of the character and integrity of their local politicians. Similarly, when asked about the character and integrity of members of their local community, 85 percent approve or strongly approve, while only 55 percent do so for the country as a whole. When asked about their local police, almost 82 percent approve or strongly approve in comparison to a recent Gallup Poll which found that just 57 percent of Americans have confidence in the police overall. Also, perceptions of the character and integrity of local clergy were lower than that of police at 66 percent and with only 17 percent of respondents strongly approving. This comes despite the fact that 77 percent expressed religion as being somewhat or very important in their lives.
“Our goal was to test whether there exists a disconnect between how Americans perceive situations locally versus nationally, and the data seems to indicate that there is,” said John Aversa, Director of the Catholic Memorial Research Institute for Politics and Public Policy. “There also seems to be differences in responses that break down across various demographic lines, including race and party affiliation.”
Blacks seem to hold some of these local institutions in lower regard than do whites with only 16 percent strongly approving of their neighbors and local community as opposed to 30 percent of whites. Most surprisingly, only 4 percent of blacks strongly approved of local clergy versus 20 percent of whites despite 91 percent of black stating that religion was very or somewhat important in their life versus 75 percent of whites.
While having similar perspectives of their local institutions, Republicans seem to hold more favorable views of the country as a whole than do Democrats with 63 percent approving or strongly approving of the integrity and character of the country. This is consistent with their opinion (51 percent) that the country is on the right track as opposed to only 6 percent of Democrats and their belief that the economy is in recovery (69 percent) while only 41 percent of Democrats share their opinion.
The importance of religions in respondents’ lives clearly differed among different age groups. There was a consistent increase in importance among older groups, yet 65 percent of 18–34 year-olds rated religion as important or very important.
“We believe this data gives us plenty to think about and investigate further,” said Aversa. “Through additional research, we hope to understand better why people hold different opinions locally than nationally. As a Catholic school, too, we’d also like to reconcile the importance of religion to the youngest demographic in the poll with their declining participation rate in religious services. We think these, along with the results on other critical societal issues in this poll, are exciting findings to bring into the classroom to study further with both our students and faculty.”
Complete results of the poll, including marginals and cross-tabulations, may be found on the Suffolk University Political Research Center website.
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