April 1st, 2013 at 9:54 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Many Americans associate Southern New England with the devout pilgrims who settled here in the 1600s, but a new poll shows the region’s religiosity is waning four centuries after the Mayflower arrived.
• Related: Study: RI has 3rd-most baptisms, remains most Catholic state (March 12)
February 28th, 2013 at 9:44 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – More than half of Rhode Island voters support allowing same-sex marriage in the state, while most opponents of the idea say it conflicts with their religious beliefs, according to a new poll released Thursday by Brown University.
The poll also found Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s approval rating is a dismal 26%. ”Lincoln Chafee still has not been able to move his numbers after over two years as governor,” WPRI 12 political analyst Joe Fleming said.
January 31st, 2013 at 9:22 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Democrat Gina Raimondo is the early favorite to win the 2014 governor’s race, according to a new poll released Thursday morning to WPRI.com.
The Public Policy Polling survey [pdf] shows Raimondo would win anywhere from 32% to 46% of the vote depending on which hypothetical opponents she faces. She is the only candidate to crack 40% support in any of 10 ballot tests conducted by PPP.
If Raimondo is out of the picture, however, there’s no clear frontrunner: the leading candidates in non-Raimondo scenarios shift between Republican Brendan Doherty, Republican Allan Fung and Democrat Angel Taveras depending on the match-up. Moderate Party founder Ken Block starts out with double-digit support in most scenarios, suggesting his presence could have a major impact on the outcome.
Independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee faces an unsurprisingly uphill battle to win a second term, with more than half of voters saying they don’t want him to run again. His strongest shot at re-election comes if he runs as a Democrat: running under the party banner, Chafee starts out trailing Republicans Doherty and Fung by just four points. Among voters who do want Chafee to run again, 20% say he should run as an independent and 18% say he should run as a Democrat.
January 24th, 2013 at 11:05 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Rhode Island’s House of Representatives will gather at 4 p.m. for a historic vote to legalize same-sex marriage. It will almost certainly mark the first time either chamber of the General Assembly backs the idea. (WPRI will stream the debate live online.)
While there’s no doubt the issue remains controversial, polling suggests House lawmakers will be acting in line with public opinion if it approves gay marriage today.
Last September, a WPRI 12 poll showed same-sex marriage enjoys significant support among Rhode Islanders, with 56% of voters in favor of legalization, 36% opposed and 8% unsure.
Support for same-sex marriage is fairly broad among different types of voters, with one exception: Republicans. Rhode Island GOP voters are the only group that has a majority against legalization, with 59% opposed (and 40% strongly opposed). Voters ages 60 and older are closely split, with 49% of seniors in favor and 43% opposed.
December 13th, 2012 at 11:52 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
A new poll suggests U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse is more in line with Rhode Islanders’ views on changing the Senate filibuster rules than his senior colleague Jack Reed is.
The Public Policy Polling survey of 520 Rhode Island voters finds 70% want Reed and Whitehouse to vote in favor of changing the Senate rules “so as to reduce gridlock.” The survey was commissioned by Fix the Senate Now.
Whitehouse has been a staunch advocate along with other younger senators in favor of changing the chamber’s rules to make it harder for Republicans to block legislation. Reed has been more cautious, voting against the proposal last year and taking a wait-and-see approach as momentum grows for another vote in January.
November 1st, 2012 at 11:31 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The 1st Congressional District race looks headed for a photo finish: this week’s WPRI 12 poll shows Democrat David Cicilline at 43% and Republican Brendan Doherty at 42%, with 8% of voters still undecided.
So who are those 8%?
“With the undecided voters, there’s no one group where they’re from,” said WPRI 12 political analyst and pollster Joe Fleming after the two of us examined the data from our Oct. 24-27 survey of 300 likely voters. (The margin of error is plus or minus 5.66 points, and larger for subgroups, so caveat emptor.)
One characteristic that does stick out: 11% of women are undecided, compared with only 6% of men. “That could be good for Cicilline because he’s winning that group,” Fleming said. On the other hand, by definition these are women who haven’t been convinced by the Democrat’s pitch so far.
Other than that, the undecideds are a highly heterogeneous group.
Between 8% and 9% of voters in each of the poll’s three age groups – young voters (18 to 39), middle-aged voters (40 to 59) and older voters (60 or older) – are undecided. The group includes 8% of independents, 8% of Democrats and 4% of Republicans.
These Rhode Islanders may be more hesitant than the average citizen to make up their minds: 18% of voters who haven’t decided between Obama and Romney for president also haven’t decided who to support for Congress, compared with only 9% Obama voters and just 4% of Romney voters.
Both side will be spending the final days of the campaign trying to present a message that pushes these voters in one direction or the other – and hope that, if the undecideds break heavily in one direction, they can make up for it with a solid ground game.
• Related: Poll: Cicilline clings to 1-point lead over Doherty (Oct. 30)
October 31st, 2012 at 9:50 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi and Tim White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – President Obama continues to hold a commanding lead over Mitt Romney in Rhode Island with six days to go before voters head to the polls, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Wednesday night.
• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results breakdown
October 31st, 2012 at 5:59 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi and Tim White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Gov. Lincoln Chafee faces a decidedly uphill battle if he opts to run for a second term in two years, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Wednesday night.
The survey of 601 likely voters also finds nearly two-thirds of Rhode Islanders think the state is unfriendly to business but three in five are satisfied with the quality of their local school district.
Coming up at 11 p.m.: Obama vs. Romney in Rhode Island
October 30th, 2012 at 5:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Sandy distracted Rhode Island for a bit, but as of this morning the election is just one week away.
What better time for a new WPRI 12 poll? Our new survey of 600 likely voters in Rhode Island will be released starting at 6 p.m. tonight with brand-new findings on who’s ahead in the hotly contested 1st Congressional District race between Congressman David Cicilline and challenger Brendan Doherty.
We’ll also have new poll results for president (Obama vs. Romney), U.S. Senate (Whitehouse vs. Hinckley) and the 2nd Congressional District (Langevin vs. Riley vs. Collins). And we’ll share the results of three other questions testing Rhode Islanders’ opinions on the state’s business climate, its K-12 education system and whether Lincoln Chafee deserves a second term as governor.
Check back at 6 p.m. for the first round of results here on WPRI.com and live on WPRI 12.
October 27th, 2012 at 4:38 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Republican Brendan Doherty’s team thinks he’s now leading Democratic incumbent David Cicilline in the 1st Congressional District. Unsurprisingly, Cicilline’s campaign strongly disagrees.
A survey commissioned by the Republican’s campaign and released Saturday afternoon shows Doherty at 45%, Cicilline at 39% and independent David Vogel at 6%, with 11% of voters undecided. The telephone interview poll of 400 likely voters was conducted Wednesday and Thursday. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.9 percentage points.
The poll was conducted by OnMessage Inc., a GOP consulting firm employed by Doherty’s campaign that previously worked for former Gov. Donald Carcieri. The question is whether it’s accurate. The OnMessage poll’s findings are far from outside the realm of possibility, but there are two reasons to be somewhat skeptical.
First, the firm didn’t release the party affiliation of its voting sample, which is a concern because its Sept. 13-14 poll may have interviewed too few Democrats to accurately capture the district. Second, the poll shows Mitt Romney winning 34% of the vote in the 1st District, which is 7 points better than his showing in the Sept. 26-29 WPRI 12 poll. It’s possible Romney has seen a significant bounce in the staunchly Democratic district over the last month, but far from certain.
The picture should become clearer when the new WPRI 12 poll is released next week. Roll Call’s Joshua Miller has more on the OnMessage survey. Separately on Saturday, Cicilline’s campaign sent out a recorded phone call with Bill Clinton endorsing Cicilline to 50,000 voters in the district. Listen here.
• Related: GOP to spend $280K on TV push (Oct. 26) | Dems counter GOP with $315K ad buy (Oct. 26)
October 10th, 2012 at 12:36 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The 496 interviews used for Brown University’s new survey were conducted in two sets over 10 days.
The survey results combine findings from two groups of interviews conducted almost a week apart, the first done from Sept. 26 to 29 and the second done from Oct. 4 to 5, according to Marion Orr, the professor who oversees Brown’s polling. “We did two consecutive sets of days,” Orr told WPRI.com.
Asked whether the poll included cell phones as well as landlines, Orr said the call list was created using phone numbers that some Rhode Islanders voluntarily write down on the official voter registration forms they file with the secretary of state’s office.
A breakdown provided by Brown shows the 496 survey respondents identified themselves as 45% independents, 37% Democrats and 10% Republicans, with an additional 6% of voters classified as “other” and 3% who didn’t know or didn’t say. As a comparison, the 501 voters surveyed in last week’s WPRI 12 poll were 40% independents, 41% Democrats and 17% Republicans, with another 2% who refused to say.
The Brown poll’s gender breakdown was 50.2% female and 49.8% male, and its age breakdown was 10% under 30; 18% ages 30 to 44; 31% ages 45 to 60; 28% ages 61 to 74; and 11% ages 75 and older. Orr said the university trains and pays undergraduate and graduate students to conduct the survey interviews.
• Related: Cicilline leads by 6 points in new Brown poll; Republicans trail (Oct. 10)
This post has been expanded.
October 10th, 2012 at 10:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
A second independent poll now shows Democratic Congressman David Cicilline has built a six-point lead over Republican challenger Brendan Doherty in Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District.
A Brown University survey released Wednesday morning shows Cicilline at 46%, Doherty at 40% and independent David Vogel at 7%, with another 7% of voters undecided. Brown’s findings mirror the results of last week’s WPRI 12 poll, which showed Cicilline at 44% and Doherty at 38%.
The survey also shows Democratic Congressman Jim Langevin ahead by 18 points in the 2nd District. Langevin is at 49%, Republican Michael Riley is at 32% and independent Abel Collins is at 5%, with 14% undecided. Incumbent Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse has a 29-point lead for U.S. Senate, with Whitehouse at 59%, Republican Barry Hinckley at 30% and 12% of voters still undecided.
Brown said the telephone survey of 496 registered Rhode Island voters was conducted over 10 days, from Sept. 26 to Oct. 5, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points on statewide questions. Brown said the survey sample for the races included 236 likely voters in the 1st Congressional District and 235 likely voters in the 2nd District, with a 6.3-point margin of error for district-only questions.
October 4th, 2012 at 1:23 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Terrible news. Jon Cohen and Scott Clement report for The Washington Post:
Breaking from two decades of tradition, this year’s election exit poll is set to include surveys of voters in 31 states, not all 50 as it has for the past five presidential elections, according to multiple people involved in the planning.
Dan Merkle, director of elections for ABC News, and a member of the consortium that runs the exit poll, confirmed the shift Wednesday. The aim, he said, “is to still deliver a quality product in the most important states,” in the face of mounting survey costs.
The decision by the National Election Pool — a joint venture of the major television networks and The Associated Press — is sure to cause some pain to election watchers across the country. …
Here is a list of the states that will be excluded from coverage: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Comparing this list with the election map, reveals how carefully the exit poll planners allocated resources. All 19 of the states with no exit polls are classified as either “solid Obama” or “solid Romney,” and there is only one “toss-up” gubernatorial or U.S. Senate race not on the list: the competitive North Dakota match-up of Heidi Heitkamp and Rick Berg.
Nesi’s Notes will be draped in black on Election Day.
May 16th, 2012 at 4:04 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
The new WPRI 12 poll in the 1st Congressional District’s Democratic primary we’re releasing at 6 p.m. surveyed precisely 302 likely Democratic primary voters. You might think that means our esteemed longtime pollster, Joe Fleming, made 302 phone calls to get his results.
But it took many more calls than that to get a representative sample of the district’s voters – more than 5,000 calls when all was said and done, according to Fleming. “You need the right age groups,” he said. “At the end of it, you may be asking for a male or somebody who’s 18 to 39″ – that is, the people hardest to track down.
That’s important because any poll’s results are only as reliable as the people who took the survey. It’s especially tricky with a primary, where only about 25% of registered voters turn out to the polls, he said.
Luckily for us, nobody in Rhode Island has more experience getting polls right than Joe Fleming. He’s been with WPRI 12 since 1984, and still recalls making waves with bygone surveys such as one that put DiPrete and Sundlun in a dead heat.
I’m betting the results dropping at 6 p.m. will cause a similar stir when we release it on TV and online.
• Related: Exclusive WPRI 12 Poll: GOP’s Doherty has big lead over Cicilline (Feb. 27)
May 14th, 2012 at 1:07 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Congressman David Cicilline is expecting to face Republican Brendan Doherty in the November election – but he’ll never get the chance if businessman Anthony Gemma snatches the Democratic nomination from him in September’s primary. So what are the chances of that actually happening?
We’ll have the answer Wednesday when we release the results of an exclusive new WPRI 12 poll. Democratic primary voters in the 1st Congressional District weighed in on whether they plan to vote for Cicilline or Gemma, how they feel about the two candidates, which one is more electable and how Cicilline’s apology tour is going.
Tim White and I will have the complete poll results online and on air Wednesday at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. The survey of 302 likely Democratic primary voters in the 1st District was conducted last Tuesday through Saturday by our pollster, Fleming & Associates, and its margin of error is 5.7 percentage points.
• Related: Exclusive WPRI 12 Poll: GOP’s Doherty has big lead over Cicilline (Feb. 27)
February 28th, 2012 at 1:32 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Rhode Island isn’t exactly known for its squeaky clean politics. But Monday’s new WPRI 12 poll has made Cook Political Report senior editor Jennifer Duffy think this year’s 1st Congressional District race could be one for the history books – and not in a good way.
The poll shows Congressman David Cicilline 15 points behind Republican challenger Brendan Doherty. “I think this means if he’s going to win this race, he’s not going to win it pretty,” Duffy, a Rhode Island native, said of Cicilline. “It is going to be among the ugliest races Rhode Island has ever witnessed.”
And considering the state’s political history, “the bar’s pretty high there,” she added.
Cicilline’s allies think he can to close the gap and defeat Doherty by following the strategy employed by Sheldon Whitehouse to defeat then-Republican Lincoln Chafee in 2006 – basically, say that even if the former state police superintendent is a moderate himself, he’ll provide a key vote to empower congressional Republicans who’ve supported privatizing Medicare.
February 27th, 2012 at 9:45 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi and Tim White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Rhode Islanders of every stripe are unhappy with Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s performance as he settles into his second year in office, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Monday evening.
The new survey of 500 registered voters finds just 21% of voters give a positive grade to Chafee, an independent ex-Republican, while 75% give him negative marks. That includes nearly half of voters – 48% – who rate the job Chafee is doing as “poor.”
The widespread antipathy toward Chafee is a stark contrast with how Rhode Islanders view Treasurer Gina Raimondo. The survey shows 56% of voters give Raimondo a positive review.
The poll also finds U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has a 22-point advantage over his challenger Barry Hinckley, with the Democratic getting 50%, the Republican getting 28% and 20% of voters unsure.
• Interactive: Complete results from the WPRI 12 poll with cross-tabs
Coming on Tuesday: Should Providence file for bankruptcy? Should Rhode Island allow casinos?
February 27th, 2012 at 5:45 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi and Tim White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Congressman David Cicilline is headed for a double-digit defeat at the hands of Republican Brendan Doherty unless he finds a way to win back a large number of voters by November, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Monday evening.
The new survey of 250 registered voters in Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District shows Doherty, a former state police superintendent, would defeat Cicilline 49% to 34%, with 16% of voters undecided. Doherty’s lead over Cicilline has grown by two points since the previous WPRI 12 poll last May.
Cicilline has “moved the needle, but unfortunately for him in the wrong direction,” WPRI 12 political analyst Joe Fleming said. “Clearly, whatever he’s tried to turn it around hasn’t worked to this point.”
• Interactive: Complete results from the WPRI 12 poll with cross-tabs
Coming up at 10: Whitehouse-Hinckley; approval ratings (Obama, Chafee, Reed, Whitehouse, Raimondo)
February 27th, 2012 at 3:26 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
When our exclusive WPRI 12 poll drops at 6 p.m. tonight, you’ll see that the margin of error is plus or minus 4.38 percentage points for the entire poll and plus or minus 6.2 percentage points for the 1st District only.
Inevitably, some well-meaning folks will take our top-line results and then argue that anything in a range of, respectively, 8.76 points or 12.4 points could be true. If Cicilline is down 5 points, these folks may say the race is a “statistical tie.”
Those folks will be wrong, and here’s why, as explained by Kevin Drum back in 2008 (emphasis mine):
February 27th, 2012 at 11:39 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Boy, who isn’t doing a survey in the 1st Congressional District this month?
David Segal did a poll. WPRI 12 did a poll (which we’ll release at 6:00 tonight). And now we’ve learned someone else with a keen interest in Congressman David Cicilline did a poll, too.
Two NN readers separately reported getting calls last week to take a part in a telephone survey by an organization that described itself as something like ”Rhode Island Opinion Research.” That doesn’t ring a bell, so it’s quite possible a different group – The Feldman Group, perhaps? – used it as a nom de plume.
One of the two readers, bless her heart, took thorough notes about the questions, which were asked by “a very professional woman,” though she had some trouble pronouncing “Carcieri,” “Segal” and “Boehner.” After the jump, you can scan the reader’s hastily drafted notes about the survey questions.
February 27th, 2012 at 9:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Everyone loves a good poll, and in Rhode Island there are no better polls than those conducted by WPRI 12′s longtime pollster and political analyst, Joe Fleming. And that makes today a big day in Campaign 2012.
The 1st Congressional District race between Democratic Congressman David Cicilline and Republican challenger Brendan Doherty is already the state’s biggest political battle of the year. The two candidates finished 2011 neck-and-neck in the money race and Doherty’s only obstacle to the GOP nomination – John Loughlin – left the field in January.
Our last WPRI 12 poll, in May, showed Cicilline trailing Doherty by 13 points. There’s been little sign of a comeback for the congressman since then, with last week’s Brown University survey giving him a 15% approval rating and his successor in Providence now saying the capital is nearly bankrupt. Cicilline may face a primary challenge from Anthony Gemma, too.
But there’s a reason top Democrats remain behind Cicilline and political observers refuse to count him out: he’s a dogged campaigner, a prodigious fundraiser and a down-the-line Democrat in a deep-blue state running in a presidential year, while Doherty is a first-time candidate whose few public appearances so far have been so-so.
While the Cicilline-Doherty matchup will likely get most of the ink, other results to keep an eye on include how Gemma would fare against Doherty; whether Barry Hinckley is getting any traction against U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse; how voters feel about Governor Chafee after a year in office; and where Treasurer Raimondo stands post-pensions.
WPRI 12 will release the results of our new poll in four televised installments today and Tuesday starting at 6 p.m. tonight. Here’s what we’ll tell you about this evening:
My colleague Brian Curtin has created this interactive results page where you can dig into the results for different demographic groups, and I’ll have articles and analysis here. Don’t miss it.
• Related: Exclusive Poll: Cicilline would lose to Republicans Doherty, Loughlin (May 19)
February 23rd, 2012 at 2:00 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The headline numbers in the new Brown University poll are bad – really bad – for Congressman Cicilline and Governor Chafee. But there are other ways to analyze the results that look slightly better, though still pretty bad, for the two incumbents.
Political practitioners have long complained about “the science” of surveys that generate job approval ratings by asking voters to rate an official’s job performance as either “excellent,” “good,” “fair”/”only fair” or “poor.” Their argument is that while “only fair” isn’t a huge vote of confidence, it’s not necessarily a sign of out-and-out disapproval, either.
Evidently, Brown disagrees – the university lumps together “excellent” and “good” to create the metric it calls an approval rating. But by digging into the detailed breakdown of the poll, we can take another look at the numbers and what they say about local leaders’ standing among voters.
One way to do that is to strip out three of the four ratings and just look at the share of voters who describe each politician’s job performance as “poor,” which is clearly negative. While that probably understates the level of disapproval, perhaps Chafee (45%) and Cicilline (43%) can take solace that a majority don’t think they’re doing a poor job:
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
• Analysis: Poll’s possible silver lining for Chafee
Cicilline’s job approval rating has sunk to just 15% among all Rhode Island voters, down from 24% in December, according to a new Brown University poll released Thursday morning. Chafee’s approval rating isn’t much higher at 22%, down from 27%.
To put those numbers in perspective, President Richard Nixon’s approval rating was 24% a week before he resigned over Watergate in 1974. Slightly more voters rated Chafee’s job performance as poor (45%) than said so about Cicilline’s (43%).
Cicilline’s successor, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, is the most popular elected official in Rhode Island based on Brown’s polling. The mayor’s statewide job approval rating is up to 60%. Treasurer Gina Raimondo comes next with 58% approving of her job performance.
February 7th, 2012 at 6:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Cheer up a bit, Rhode Island. You’re going to bum everybody out.
Just 5.4% of Rhode Islanders described economic conditions in the United States as excellent or good in 2011, the smallest share in any state, according to Gallup polling. That was down from the already minuscule 7% who felt that way in 2010.
Oregon had the second-fewest optimists in 2011, but even they had 7.2%. More than half of Rhode Island residents – 52.9% – described the economy as poor last year, compared with 51% who said so in 2010.
Moreover, Gallup found Rhode Islanders’ confidence about the economy has barely budged in the last three years.
Those responses gave Rhode Island a score of minus-43 in Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index for 2011, tied for third-lowest in the nation. That’s an improvement from the state’s rock-bottom score of minus-63 back in 2008, but worse than its scores of minus-39 and minus-41 in 2010 and 2009, respectively.
August 16th, 2011 at 10:40 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
The Ocean State’s jobless rate isn’t the worst in the country, but its mood might be.
Just 7% of Rhode Islanders described economic conditions in the United States as excellent or good during the first half of 2011, according to a new Gallup poll – tied with Oregon for the second-lowest percentage in any state. About half the state’s residents – 51% – described conditions as poor.
The survey shows Rhode Islanders’ opinions haven’t budged over the past 12 months. The share of Rhode Islanders who described conditions as excellent or good was also 7% in the first half of 2010, and the share who described them as poor a year ago was 50%.
Asked about the direction of the economy during the first six months of this year, 58% of Rhode Islanders said they thought it was getting worse, while only 34% said they thought it was getting better. That was slightly better than a year ago, when 62% said the economy was worsening and 34% said it was improving.
Those responses gave Rhode Island a score of -34 in Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index for the first six months of 2011, which ranked ninth-lowest in the nation. That was essentially unchanged from the state’s score of -36 in the first half of 2010.
The only place in the nation with a positive Economic Confidence Index score for this year was Washington, D.C., with a +11, Gallup said. Massachusetts’ score of -19 was tied for fourth-highest. Connecticut posted a -30.
But all those numbers may be lower now, Gallup chief economist Dennis Jacobe warned. “Economic confidence has worsened considerably during recent weeks and, as such, views over the second half of the year may be quite different from those in the first half,” he wrote.
“Gallup Daily tracking each day asks Americans to assess the current state of the U.S. economy and to say whether the economy is getting better or worse,” the firm said in explaining its methodology. The responses to these two questions are combined into Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index, which has a theoretical range of -100 to +100. Negative scores indicate Americans are more pessimistic than optimistic about the state of the U.S. economy.”
June 1st, 2011 at 1:07 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
Maybe this explains why people are so stressed around here.
Just 48.9% of Rhode Islanders were “thriving” in 2010, judging by how they rate their lives now and five years from now, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. That was the fourth-lowest share thriving in the country, behind only Ohio (48.8%), Kentucky (47%) and West Virginia (45.8%).
On a scale of 0 to 10, Rhode Islanders on average rated their lives right now as a 6.8 and in five years as a 7.7. Gallup classifies “thriving” as a current rating of 7 or better and a future rating as 8 or better.
The places with the most residents thriving were Hawaii (65.5%), Alaska (59.5%) and Wyoming (57.7%). Hawaii is also the least-stressed state in the nation, according to Gallup, which said there was “no clear regional pattern” among the states’ thriving scores.
“Americans’ ratings of their lives five years from now consistently exceed ratings of their current lives, both over time and across all 50 states,” Gallup noted. “This suggests that people in various situations – good and bad – tend to express optimism that things will improve in the future.”
Compared with other nations, the percentage of Rhode Islanders who are thriving is on par with Ireland and Venezuela and higher than in Germany or France, according to Gallup’s global wellbeing snapshot.
(map: Gallup)
May 31st, 2011 at 1:04 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
Rhode Island is one of the higher-stress states in the nation, a new survey shows.
In 2010, 41% of Rhode Islanders said they’d felt stressed during the previous day, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. That was the 10th-highest stress level in the country, below No. 9 New Hampshire (41.1%) but above No. 11 Washington (40.9%).
On the bright side, fewer Rhode Islanders felt harried in 2010 than during the previous two years – 42.7% reported being stressed in 2009 and 41.6% reported it in 2008.
Hawaiians were the least stressed in 2010 for the third year in a row, with only 30.2% feeling that way, according to Gallup. Utah residents reported the highest stress level – 45.1% – and Massachusetts was No. 5, at 42.6%. Americans’ average stress level was 39.4%, with the Northeast and West among the higher-level regions.
Here’s how Gallup described its overall findings:
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index state data underscore that stress is a complex emotion that is likely related to numerous life issues. …
That finances and health aren’t the only determinants of Americans’ stress levels reveals that earning more money or being in great physical shape doesn’t necessarily protect against all of life’s stressors. Family and career issues likely play a large role in individuals’ daily stress levels.
That stress levels did not increase much during the recession provides additional evidence that Americans’ definition of stress goes beyond economic experiences. Still, further investigation into what drives stress and how stress affects people is needed as nearly 40% of American adults consistently report experiencing it a lot of the day “yesterday.”
(map: Gallup)
May 31st, 2011 at 7:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s first term may be off to a middling start, but compared with his counterparts in other states he could be doing quite a bit worse.
Chafee’s net approval rating ranks 28th among the 38 governors tracked by Public Policy Polling, according to figures provided to WPRI.com by the Democratic-affiliated firm. Chafee’s 38% approval and 44% disapproval ratings gave him an overall margin of -6 points.
That’s better than one of Chafee’s next-door governors, Connecticut Democrat Dan Malloy – whose 39%/47% ratings gave him an approval margin of -8 points, ranking him 29th – but worse than Massachusetts Democrat Deval Patrick, whose approval and disapproval ratings were both 45%. Patrick ranked 24th.
Chafee spokesman Mike Trainor said he believes the governor will win over voters as time goes on.
“Governor Chafee – he’s a workhorse, not a show-horse,” Trainor said. “His substantive, measured, methodical approach is going to produce results that I think are going to please an awful lot of Rhode Islanders. But it takes time.”
Trainor also noted Chafee faces big challenges. ”No reasonable person would disagree with the fact that he inherited a colossally difficult agenda,” he said. “His style is to go at things very methodically, very deliberately and substantively. He’s not somebody to put a sugarcoating on anything, and I admire him for that.”
Among the 10 governors whose approval margins are worse than Chafee’s, six are Republicans (Texas’ Perry, Pennsylvania’s Corbett, Wisconsin’s Walker, Michigan’s Snyder, Ohio’s Kasich and Florida’s Scott) and four are Democrats (Connecticut’s Malloy, Washington’s Gregoire, North Carolina’s Perdue and Illinois’ Quinn).
The most unpopular governors are Florida’s Rick Scott and Ohio’s John Kasich, both with approval margins of -23 points. Illinois’ Pat Quinn is right behind at -22. Nebraska Republican Dave Heineman is the most popular governor; his 67% approval and 23% disapproval ratings gave him a margin of +44.
One caveat – these polls were done over a long period of time, so some of the governors could have been caught at particularly high or low points. Chafee’s numbers come from February, while the others range from this month back to January 2010 (though most are more recent than that).
Chafee’s no Jack Reed, anyway. Rhode Island’s senior senator was the most popular Democratic senator in the entire country in 82 Public Policy Polling job approval surveys from January 2010 to February 2011.
May 19th, 2011 at 9:49 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
Congressman David Cicilline’s job approval numbers in the 1st Congressional District are much worse than those of his fellow Democrats, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and President Obama.
But there may be a silver lining for Cicilline in our new WPRI 12 poll – he’ll be sharing the ballot with Obama and Whitehouse in November 2012, so their presence on the ticket could give him a needed boost.
The survey of 300 registered voters by Fleming & Associates was conducted May 13-15 and has a 5.7% margin of error. Here’s how they rated the job performance of the three Democrats:
In our survey, “positive” means a voter described the politician’s job performance as “excellent” or “good,” while negative means he or she described it as “fair” or “poor.”
Tim White and I have more – including extended analysis from our political analyst Joe Fleming – in our new story on WPRI.com. Joe will also be taking about the poll this weekend on WPRI 12′s “Newsmakers” along with Tim, WRNI’s Ian Donnis and Scott MacKay, and yours truly.
You can also see the poll results for Cicilline when he goes head-to-head against his two potential Republican opponents here, and check out complete poll results here.
May 19th, 2011 at 5:46 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
The results are in, and they’re not pretty for Congressman Cicilline.
Cicilline would lose to his two potential Republican challengers – Brendan Doherty and John Loughlin – by double-digits if the 1st Congressional District election were held today, according to the new WPRI 12 poll being released on air right now.
The survey of 300 registered voters by Fleming & Associates was conducted May 13-15 and has a 5.7% margin of error. Here are the head-to-head matchups:
We also got favorability ratings – as opposed to job performance ratings – for each of the three. “I’ve seen surveys where people had very high favorability ratings and very low job ratings – they like them as a person but they don’t necessarily like the job they’re doing,” our analyst Joe Fleming said.
Here’s how those broke down:
Tim White and I have much more – including reactions from Cicilline, Doherty and Loughlin’s spokesman – in our complete story on WPRI.com.
At 10 p.m. on Fox Providence and 11 p.m. on WPRI 12, we’ll have more results from the poll – this time testing how Cicilline’s standing in the 1st District compares with Sheldon Whitehouse’s and Barack Obama’s. You can look through complete poll results here. (No Nightcap tonight.)