News
By Tina Hong
|
November 1, 2000
Potential Virginia voters feel that the George Allen (R) and Charles S. Robb (D), Virginia's senatorial candidates, are running honest and informative campaigns, but at the same time, they agree that the race is not very interesting.
These and other questions about the Allen-Robb race were the focus of a recent study conducted this fall by the Sorensen Institute, part of the University's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
The Institute will use the survey to help politicians in future races run effective campaigns.
Dale Lawton, director of the Project on Campaign Conduct, said employees of the Center for Survey Research called 814 randomly selected Virginians and asked them questions about whether they have been paying attention to the campaign.
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"The first survey was about half an hour, and we asked them questions about their demographics," said Paul Freedman, research director for the Project on Campaign Conduct,.
The CSR staffers then called the same people again and asked the same questions; 549 of the 814 original participants answered.
According to the survey, 41.9 of first wave respondents and 53 percent of second wave respondents said they felt Robb "is running a fair campaign so far" and 43.2 percent of first wave respondents and 47.2 percent of respondents felt that "Allen is running a fair campaign so far."
According to the survey, 26.2 percent of respondents from the first wave of the survey and 44.8 percent of respondents from the second wave said "the tone of the campaign has been mostly informative over the past two weeks."
Although respondents said they found the campaign informative and fair, 29.6 percent of first wave and 45.4 percent of second wave respondents thought the "tone of the campaign has been mostly discouraging over the past 2 weeks" and 59.4 percent of first wave and 61.1 percent of second wave respondents felt "the tone of the campaign has been mostly boring over the past two weeks."
Freedman said the study is unique in "not focusing on the horserace - we have a different focus and scope of interest."
He added that the survey was a "tremendous opportunity to study the [Allen-Robb] election in greater detail."
Lawton said voters might think the Allen-Robb campaign is boring, "but more people are paying attention."
"We spent months hammering out the question wording," Freedman said.
