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.
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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)
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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.
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Students take a short break after working hard to contact 382 residents
of Leon County in five days
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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.
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