By Mitch Kokai
As Election Day approaches, people who pay attention to polling focus almost exclusively on “horse races.” Who’s leading? How large is the gap?
Focusing on the electoral bottom line makes sense. Yet other enlightening information can get buried.
Take the most recent Carolina Journal Poll. Released on Sept. 19, it covered North Carolina’s presidential battle, all 10 statewide Council of State races, and the lone state Supreme Court contest.
Poll numbers arrived as major news rocked the governor’s race. A CNN report linked Republican nominee Mark Robinson to comments on adult websites that rattled even his supporters.
It’s understandable if people missed responses to the CJ Poll’s 21st question. Yet results of that query could have potential long-term significance.
Pollsters asked likely North Carolina general election voters to name the “most reliable source of information” about candidates. Respondents faced eight options, along with “unsure.”
The “winner,” with nearly 26% support? Debates. More than one in four voters who regularly head to the polls in North Carolina rely on them for reliable candidate information. Electoral opponents square off against each other, and sometimes against the moderators asking the questions.
Democrats (28%) were more likely than Republicans (23%) to choose debates. Moderates (30%) and conservatives (28%) offered more support for debates than self-described liberals (19%). Men (28%) were a bit more likely than women (24%) to choose debates.
Support for debates remained fairly steady at 26-27% among voters from 18 to 64 years old, while dropping to 23% among those 65 and older. Black (35%) and Latino (39%) voters were more likely than whites (21%) to select debates as their top source for candidate information.
The Carolina Journal Poll reached voters days after Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump squared off on a national debate stage. Observers generally gave Harris the edge in that encounter. Even some ardent Trump supporters faulted him for steering off a rhetorical course that could have scored more political points.
It’s possible that voters’ most recent experience with a nationally televised debate influenced their response to the poll. It would be interesting to know whether those voters would have offered different answers three months earlier. President Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump on June 27 could have produced a different poll result.
It’s worth noting that North Carolina’s voters express support for debates as an information source at the same time that the state’s marquee contests produce fewer debate options.
Democrat Josh Stein rejected Robinson’s recent request for a debate in the gubernatorial race. Robinson avoided proposed debates during the primary campaign. In the top race of North Carolina’s 2022 election cycle, Ted Budd won the Republican US Senate nomination without stepping on stage with his primary opponents.
Voters seem to like debates. That’s no guarantee that candidates will feel compelled to show up.
The second most popular answer to the poll question about reliable candidate information was “unsure.” Roughly 19% of those surveyed chose that option.
Legacy media outlets ought to be especially disappointed that “unsure” beat out the third most popular option. Just 17% of voters identified “newspaper/radio/TV news” as the most reliable information source about candidates.
Given the news media’s traditional role as a watchdog, holding politicians of all political stripes accountable for their actions, the fact that 83% of voters chose an option other than standard-issue news sources should cause at least some concern.
Candidate rallies and speeches attracted support from 16% of voters. It’s not surprising to see a partisan and ideological split in support for rallies versus news coverage. While 26% of Democrats named traditional news sources as the most reliable source of candidate information, just 9% of Republicans chose that option. Reverse the percentages, and you’ll find more support among Republicans (26%) than Democrats (9%) for rallies and speeches. Among voters affiliated with neither major party, the rallies-and-speeches option prevailed (18%) over traditional news outlets (14%).
Other poll options were online news (10%), direct mail and candidate websites (6.5%), social media (3%), and endorsements (2.5%). Just 0.1% of voters, represented by one of the 600 voters surveyed, selected campaign ads as the most reliable source of candidate information.
In a follow-up question, 66% of voters said they considered campaign ads untruthful. Just 27% labeled them at least somewhat truthful.
Yet recent history suggests we are likely to see many more campaign ads than debates in North Carolina’s top election contests in the years ahead. Perhaps results of the latest Carolina Journal Poll can spur debate about doing a better job addressing voters’ preferences.
Mitch Kokai is senior political analyst for the John Locke Foundation.
Candidate’s social media posts > debates. Not on the spot, time to think, time to articulate a thought.
Any politician afraid of a debate (looking at you Trump & Stein!) has shown me that they don’t have what it takes. If you’re too scared to go toe-to-toe, there’s no way I’d ever vote for you!