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The Tallahassee News 

An Independent Voice in the Big Bend Since 1996
       'Where there is no vision the people perish'
                             October 2008 Issue

Leon County shows 2-1 Obama lead in poll;
black vote may double margin of win. Leon
voters want economic fix. Vote may be close
on gay marriage; Akinyemi favored over DePuy

Special to the News
 
   Leon County voters are poised to give a 2-1 vote to presidential candidate Barack Obama over Republican opponent John McCain, according to a public opinion poll of Leon County residents taken over eight days Oct. 22-29 by graduate students in a research class at Florida A&M University School of Journalism & Graphic Communication.

   The scientific poll of 382 randomly selected residents who say they plan to vote or already have voted shows that Democrat candidate Barack Obama is leading by 60.7 percent to 27.8 percent for Republican John McCain with 8.3 percent of voters undecided and 2.4 percent voting for other candidates.

Polltakers found that not one black respondent in Leon County reported a preference for John McCain, and that white residents favoring Obama but split 52-36 percent. The black vote, always essential in Democratic candidate efforts in Leon County, could double the winning margin for Obama.

  "It is unusual not to have at least a couple of poll respondents in the black community favor the Republican candidate," said Prof. Michael Abrams, who has been doing Leon County presidential polls for more than 20 years. "I think even that small vote will be missing this year.

" Given the margin of error in sampling, it is possible that McCain will garner a few votes in mostly-black precincts, but the numbers will apparently be infinitesmal.

  Of the poll's 382 respondents, 22.3 percent or 83 persons identified themselves as black. The county has 27.2 percent percent black voters, or 47,551 of 174,481 registered voters. Of them, 1,243 are Republicans.  White voter registration shows 51,535 Democrats and 42,840 Republicans.

     While the county has about 86,000 registered Democrats and 43,000 Republicans, the county has not always been a given for Democrats, having gone Republican as recently as 1988. The black vote will apparently make a large difference this year.

     While some predicted a crossover vote, only 11 percent of both Democrats and Republicans said they will cross over to the other party's candidate.

   Students involved in this professional level poll were from a research methods class and included graduate students Aisha Radford, Khaneshia J. Smith, Marsha Clarke, Jacquelyn McClaud, Nadia Mundy, Megan Reilly, Dominique Shaw. Other graduate students were Russell Motley and Jonathan Patton.  Undergraduate students from FAMU journalism classes took part in making phone calls from The Tallahassee Democrat newsroom at night.

  "It was a one-of-a-kind experience," said Dominique Shaw, a graduate student from South Carolina. experience  "I love the residents. They were open to expressing different things and even shedding light on things we had in our survey."

Aisha Radford, 23, from Miami  "learned a lot about people, expecially retired people. they want someone to talk to.  It makes them feel good. This one lady said 'give me your address I will send you a book' that she wrote back in the day. "

Voters in Leon County say by a wide margin that the first thing the new president must do is to address economic problems, and 62 percent of those who plan to vote say they are not better off economically than they were at the same time last year. About 64 percent say they have taken steps to meet what has been an increasing cost for gasoline, at least for the past few weeks.

The poll has a 95 percent confidence level at a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points, according to FAMU professor Michael E. Abrams whose journalism class developed the questions and worked with other FAMU journalism students at The Tallahassee Democrat to complete the work. Abrams is also publisher of this web newspaper.

"It  wouldn't be surprising if  Obama exceeded the 2004 vote for John Kerry in Leon County," said Abrams. "However, there are independents who haven't made up their mind, and who knows what will happen in the days right up to the election. Right now, in Leon County, it looks good for Obama."

Kerry, the Democrat, took Leon county in 2004 by 61.5 percent to George Bush's 37.85 percent.



Grad student Aisha Radford made many phone calls



Grad student Jonathan Patton lent a hand



Grad Student Nadia Mundy ready to begin calling



Undergrads Alexis Vidot and Wesley Martin
worked hard to complete the surveys
(Picture of more students is below)

This was  the largest margin in the county for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1944 when Franklin Roosevelt won at 84.36 percent over his rival.

Leon County has voted majority Republican four times since then, in 1964, 1972, 1984 and 1988, and one time in 1968 voted a plurality for Independent candidate George Wallace.

Students take a short break after working hard to contact 382 residents
of Leon County in five days
    Leon County residents are sharply represented by race on candidates. Of those who identified themselves as black, none said they would vote for McCain, and six said "other" or "undecided."In effect, more than 95 percent of black voters say they will vote for Obama. 

For Leon County voters who identified themselves as white, the margin is much less strong, with 52.4 percent favoring Obama, and 36 percent favoring McCain. The rest are undecided or "other."Crossover voting in Leon County seems to be weak, as only 11 percent of both Republicans and Democrats say they will vote for the opposition candidate. 

   Leon County residents are split over the gay marriage amendment,  with 43.7 percent supporting the ban on gay marriages, and  46.8 opposing them, with 8.9 percent saying they are undecided.  The amendment banning gay marriages has only minor differences by race, with about 50 percent of blacks and 42 percent of whites supporting it. However, more than 60 percent of Republicans support the amendment as compared to only 36 percent of the Democrats.
 
  The poll also showed that residents say the most important issue for  the new president to address is the economy at 52.1 percent; the war in Iraq at 14.3 percent, and health care at 14.0 percent , with environmental issues at 2.9 percent. Some residents added those together in various combinations, and a few said the new president should address all of them at once.
   
     In U.S. House District. Democrat incumbent Allen Boyd is leading Republican challenger Mulligan by 53.3 percent to 12.5 percent, with 32.9 percent saying they don’t know or are undecided who they will vote for.
       In a county-wide race, Leon voters favor challenger  Akin Akinyemi over current county commissioner Ed Dupuy by 40.7 to 30.4 percent. However the margin of error at five points and the 28 percent of voters who say they are undecided could script a tight race for the two candidates, according to Abrams.

     While these issues are not on the ballot, prospective voters also say they support drilling for oil off the coast of Florida by 41.2 to 38 percent, and are split over the idea that vouchers could be used to send public school students to private religious schools, with 38.8 percent opposing vouchers, 34.2 percent supporting them, and 26.2 percent "neutral" on the issue.

Most Leon County residents say they still take their cars to work, some 73.7  percent, with 4.8 percent carpooling;  1.3 percent taking a bus; 1.6 percent walking;  1 percent bicycling;  4.4 percent using a motorcycle or scooter; and the rest saying they are using combinations or "other" means of transport.

     Respondents to the poll identified themselves as 72.7 percent white and 22.3 percent black, with Hispanics. Asians and others totalling about 5 percent.

      Asked where they are getting their "news information" from, 28.6 percent said television;  7.4 percent newspapers; 7.4 from online newspapers or other online sources; and five percent from radio.  However, 50 percent said they used various combinations of television, print and online sources.

      "Journalists today have to learn to be versatile," said Abrams. "Employers are expecting  journalism  students to be able to use many kinds of media to get their stories across."

   Abrams said that telephone polling will reach a point in the near future where sampling accuracy is going to be questioned, since some people have turned off their home telephones and are using cell phones exclusively. "If there is a quantitative difference in outlook between those who only have cell phones and those who have both home and cell phones, pollsters are going to be looking for new methods to survey populations. No one wants to receive solicitation for a survey on a cell phone." ,

The poll is from a random sample of listed Leon county telephone numbers with some digits added to seek unlisted numbers.