Citizens View on NC Leaders Slightly Different than MI

In recent surveys conducted both in North Carolina and Michigan by Brogan & Partners, it was found that southerners and mid-westerners seem to think alike when it comes to their state’s leaders. When asked to rank how well civic group leaders, business leaders, education leaders, and elected leaders are serving their states, the North Carolina public gave out mediocre but passing grades, while Michigan citizens were slightly less satisfied. Despite the difference among the individual grades, however, these states both agree that civic group leaders are doing the best while they are least pleased with elected officials.

To read the North Carolina press release on this issue, visit Brogan's website.

Although there is a direct correlation between the level of grades given in both North Carolina and Michigan, respondents gave differing opinions when asked which one group they think is the most important in helping their state’s economy grow. In the mid-west, the public found elected officials to be the most important, while North Carolinians chose education leaders.

As Jim Tobin said in the press release, “[The overall survey numbers] suggest that most people aren’t wildly unhappy with elected leaders, but they seem to be asking for more from them.”

When considering this, it makes sense that Michigan citizens believe them to be the most important in helping their economy grow. However, when examining North Carolina’s results, it seems a bit odd that their respondents graded elected officials the lowest, yet found business leaders the most creative and education leaders the most important.

So, what exactly does North Carolina want from their elected officials? They believe they are serving the state poorly, but they do not find them to be all that creative or important in helping their economy grow.

What do you think? How can these results be explained?

North Carolina to Leaders: Take Drought Seriously

Survey results from the Brogan Survey released today show that 85% of North Carolinians think the drought in our state is serious or extremely serious. (Click on the chart below to enlarge it.)


You can read the full press release here.

71.8% said more needs to be done, while only 1.3% said that less needs to be done. 20.3% felt that enough was being done to address drought conditions.

75% indicate they are personally cutting back, versus 23.5% who are not.

The likelihood that a North Carolinian considers the drought serious increases as you move West. This is most evident when you compare our regional breakdown with the map of current drought conditions shown here.

In our survey, here are the percentage of people in each region who classified the drought as "extremely serious":

• Western: 52.0%
• Charlotte: 56.7%
• Piedmont: 48.7%
• Southern: 38.5%
• Triangle: 46.0%
• Coastal: 31.7%
  

Here in Raleigh, starting next Tuesday, we can only water our lawn once a week. That restriction was reported in the paper on 8/23, the same day we were finishing up our calls, which started Monday, 8/20. Most were completed prior to that news being widely known.

Have you cut back? Is Raleigh doing enough? Is Charlotte? How about in the mountains?

Let us know what you think.

Michigan Leadership Survey Has Lots of Data

While Daniel Howes of the Detroit News correctly excerpted parts of the recent Brogan Survey questions on Michigan leadership in today's Crisis of Confidence story, there was much more in that line of questioning.

To read our press release on the subject, click here.

The report card part of the findings were interesting. The 600-person telephone poll asked adults statewide to grade groups of leaders based on how well they are "currently serving the State of Michigan." The choices were aligned like a report card: A, B, C, D or F. The report card results are:

• Civic group leaders B-
• Business leaders C
• Education leaders C
• Union leaders C-
• Elected leaders D+

Note that we intentionally did not focus on any one person, any one organization or any one political party. We were more trying to get at the mood of people in the state to serve as context in advance of the Mackinac event than trying to do a typical political poll.

What do you think? Read all the data from these questions here, completely unfiltered, including cross tabs by region, ethnicity, gender and age. Once you do, leave a comment telling us what you think of all this.

Our Michigan Launch is a Page 1-A Story

The Detroit News certainly found our first Michigan Brogan Survey findings to be of interest. Check out this front page headline, "Crisis of Confidence".
In the story, columnist Daniel Howes notes some of the findings of "Brogan's report-card style survey." We're pleased with the coverage, to be sure, and hope the findings help frame a constructive, productive discussion during the Mackinac Conference.

Gas Prices Still Soaring

Gas prices in North Carolina averaged a little over $2.83 one month ago, just before respondents completed the Brogan Survey. Based on that price, 59% of respondents told us they had been forced to postpone other purchases. Fast forward to today and the average cost of regular unleaded gas in North Carolina is nearly $3.15, according to AAA's Media Site for retail gasoline prices. That is a $0.32 increase in just four weeks! What does this mean for North Carolinians? Our guess is that the 26.8% who said they didn't intend to change how much they drive this summer will be reconsidering.

Different parts of the state are being affected pretty evenly, with Charlotte, the Triangle and Fayetteville all seeing an increase of $0.31 in the last month. The national average of regular unleaded gas was up to $3.22 as of Monday, coming up $0.12 in the past week.

With no sign of a slowdown in price increase, what will people do? It'll be interesting to see how Memorial Day Weekend turns out; catching up on LOST episodes instead of driving to the beach anyone?

TV Show Cancellation Wishes Vary by NC Region

In yesterday's post, we shared the data on which popular TV shows North Carolina residents surveyed would cancel first. Today, we look at that data by region of the state, and there are significant differences.

• American Idol has a lot of haters in the Southern region, where 19.4% of respondents would tube that show. That's a sharp contrast to their neighbors to the north, where only 1.8% of Coastal residents would get rid of the show.
• The Coastal folks don't like 24 much. They were the most likely region to pick that show to cancel, at 8.8%. The Southern region disagrees again, where only 2.8% would cancel 24.
• The Charlotte region wants to vote Survivor off the island. 24.7% are done with that show. Only 8.3% in the Southern region feel the same...most of them continue to give the show the immunity necklace.
• Speaking of islands, the Southern region also had 19.4% of folks wanting to get rid of Lost, putting it in a tie in that region with Idol. Charlotte has the most Lost fans, with only 6.5% choosing to cancel Locke, Kate, Jack and Sawyer.
• Nobody got too worked up about canceling E.R. (Now it could be because most people thought it was canceled years ago, but that's just us talking here...). The North Central region had 7.1% in favor of taking the show off life support. In contrast, the Western region had nobody (0.0%) give their votes to snuffing out E.R.
• CSI didn't have many people eager to investigate it, either. The Charlotte region at 3.9% slightly edged out the Triangle (3.7%) and the the Coastal (3.5%) region. The North Central folks came in lowest, at 0.9%.
• Everyone saved their animosity for Desperate Housewives, which might just prove that the brightest stars also flame out most brilliantly. The Coastal region kept their powder dry from other shows and used it here, with 40.4% saying they are tired of Wisteria Lane. The Southern region of the state was kindest, coming in at 25.0% who were no longer mourning the passing of Mary Alice.

With the American Idol finale going tonight, we may head to the Southern region, where we're confident it won't be showing... But hey, that's just us...

NC Says: Please cancel "Desperate Housewives"!

At the Brogan Survey we like to ask the occasional fun question as well as the serious ones, just to mix it up a bit.

This North Carolina survey asked 600-people: "If you were a network television executive and you had to cancel one show, which of the following shows would you cancel first?" We rotated the orders of choices so as not to have any bias in the order they were read.

Desperate Housewives "won" in a landslide, meaning people in North Carolina are really ready for that show to go... American Idol came in a surprisingly strong third. (Angry Sanjaya fans maybe??)

Here are the results, the most often canceled first:

• Desperate Housewives: 31.5%
• Survivor: 20.2%
• American Idol: 14.2%
• Lost: 11.9%
• Twenty Four (24): 5.6%
• E. R.: 4.1%
• CSI: 3.1%
• Don't know/refused: 9.5%

We think the picture above shows the Housewives mourning their dwindling fame...

The 600-person telephone survey was conducted May 3-7, 2007 for Brogan & Partners by the Glengariff Group of Chicago. The questions were not commissioned by any candidate, company or organization. You can read press releases that came from the larger survey here.

What do you think? Which show would you cancel first? We thought maybe 24 was the most tired show, but the anti "Housewives" crowd came on strong... Do you agree?

Income Optimism Varies

When we asked North Carolinians: "Thinking about six months from now, do you think your income will be higher or lower than it is today? Or do you think your income will be about the same as today?", we got a wide variety of opinions.

Most people in North Carolina thought there incomes would stay the same. However, some interesting breakdowns in the cross tabs. African Americans were more likely than Caucasians to say they expected their income to rise, but they were also much more likely to say they expected it to fall.

Young people were the most optimistic, as might be expected, with a steady consistent leveling off with age. Males were also more optimistic and more pessimistic than females, suggesting a bit more volatility there.

The 600-person telephone survey was conducted May 3-7, 2007 for Brogan & Partners by the Glengariff Group of Chicago. The questions were not commissioned by any candidate, company or organization. You can read press releases that came from the larger survey here.

Piedmont Pessimists

When asked whether they thought the North Carolina economy was stronger, weaker or about the same as the national economy, there was a real variance in opinion by region of the state.

The Piedmont was by far the most pessimistic. In that region, on 8.0% said the N.C. economy was stronger. Contrast that with the Southern region, where 27.8% felt that economy was stronger. The Charlotte region, the Western counties and the Triangle were all 18 or 19%.

Why the Piedmont pessimism? We don't know. Maybe you do. Leave your best guess as a comment.

NC: African Americans Much More Likely to Support Ban on Tobacco

One interesting piece of data from the question about banning smoking in North Carolina entirely, is that African Americans were significantly more likely to support such a ban.

To be specific, the exact question asked was: "Would you support or oppose a North Carolina law that would ban tobacco use entirely?" And then we asked, "And would that be strongly support/oppose, or somewhat support/oppose."

Here's how the answers differed by race:

Caucasian:

• Strongly support 17.9%
• Somewhat support 8.4%
• Somewhat oppose 15.8%
• Strongly oppose 54.9%

African American:

• Strongly support 28.9%
• Somewhat support 6.6%
• Somewhat oppose 19.7%
• Strongly oppose 42.8%

So 35.5% of North Carolina African-Americans would support a complete ban on tobacco in the state, versus 26.3% of Caucasians. And the opposition is softer among African-Americans as well.

There's a lot of interesting data in this survey. Watch the blog for more data, or better yet, use the tool to the right to subscribe so you can see the latest at a glance...

Most importantly, share your comments... No log-in required. They can be anonymous...

Ban Smoking? In North Carolina??

That's the surprising finding from our latest survey data released today. Turns out that 28.3% of North Carolinians would support "a North Carolina law that would ban tobacco use entirely". 21% strongly support it, another 7.3% somewhat support it.

On the flip side, 69.1% would oppose such a law, 52.2% strongly, 16.9% somewhat. (2.5% don't know). But to see more than a quarter of people in the heart of the tobacco belt suggesting they'd be ok with making tobacco use illegal was surpising. Our personal guess before the survey (and again, it was just a wild guess) was about 12% would support a ban. But with all the legislation coming down on tobacco use, we'd not seen anyone who'd asked the question of who would ban it. So we asked.

The majority of people in the state did support a ban on smoking at bars and restaurants (61%) and a ban on smoking in all indoor public places (64%).

But before we say the survey shows strong sentiment for action on tobacco, other questions suggest people don't think smoking is our greatest concern. In fact, when asked to pick the greatest public health threat in the state from four choices (obesity, smoking, alcohol abuse or drug abuse--and yes, the order they were asked in rotated...), the largest percentage chose drug abuse as you can see in the press release.

That suggests to us that second hand smoke may still be seen as more of an annoyance than a significant health threat. There is increasing evidence that second hand smoke can be a health problem, but that message doesn't seem to have permeated quite yet. In fact, we did a campaign about that (you can read more about the research on it here).

And, full disclosure, we did a campaign for the state of NC trying to educate people about the dangers of short term exposure to second hand smoke. You can watch the TV spot from that campaign below, if you're interested.



What do you think:

• Great idea to outlaw tobacco because of the health risk?
• Or would that be government intrusion into private affairs?
• Is it an idea that will happen in North Carolina someday, or will it never happen

Thoughts? Leave your comment below.

Right track/wrong track opinions vary widely

We mentioned yesterday that the Charlotte area was the most pessimistic in the state (with right track/wrong track at 34.4%/55.8%), and the Triangle was the most optimistic (57.8%/29.9%). In fact, the Triangle was the only region in North Carolina that has more than 50% of people choosing right track. Why this is, we're not entirely sure.

Other details in the survey reveal that African Americans and Caucasians are fairly consistent, with 42.8% of African-Americans and 45.4% of Caucasians picking right track.

Women, however, are significantly more optimistic than men, with 48.8% choosing right track, versus 40.9% of men.

Optimism on this question declined with age. 18-24 year olds are not the cynics they are sometimes made out to be (at least on this survey)... 61.7% chose right track. 50% of 25-34 year old also chose right track. All other age groups were in the 40 percent areas.

Gas Prices Hit Pocketbooks, Consumers Pessimistic

The Brogan survey goes live today! Read the full press release here. This first release focuses on gas prices and people's perception of North Carolina's economy.

We were personally surprised that nearly 7 our of 10 (69.0%) people said they are going to drive less over the summer because of gas prices. That suggests this has moved from "annoyance" to a meaningful hit on people's pocketbooks. That is further shown by the 59% of people who say they are postponing other purchases because of high gas prices. That suggests this could trickle down and impact all of us.

The other part that surprised us was the right track/wrong track questions. We speculated that rural areas (where job growth is typically a struggle) would be pessimistic and the Triangle and Charlotte would be optimistic, but it didn't turn out that way. First off, the state is evenly divided on right track/wrong track. We thought the right track number would've been higher.

More surprising: While the Triangle is the most optimistic, the Charlotte area was the least optimistic about the state's overall direction. 57.8% of Triangle residents said the state was on the right track, while only 34.4% of Charlotte area residents agreed. (55.8% in Charlotte said the state was on the wrong track.) We're not sure what's going on in Charlotte to reflect that.

Finally, people are cautious to pessimistic about future job, income and savings, but they are generally optimistic about their personal prospects.

Read the actual questions asked here.
See which counties are included in which regions here.
Read the full press release here.

Tell us what you think:

• Are gas prices impacting your budget?
• Do you think the state's on the right track or wrong track?
• What's the mood in Charlotte?

Gas Prices and Economy Questions, NC

Gas Prices

1. In the past six months, have higher gas prices caused you to drive less, drive more, or have gas prices caused no change in your driving habits?
A. Drive More 0.5%
B. Drive Less 67.3%
C. No Change in Driving 30.2%
D. Don't Know/ Refused...DO NOT OFFER 2.0%

2. Thinking ahead, given current gas prices, will you be driving more this summer than in past summers, will you be driving less this summer than in past summers, or will you be driving the same amount as in past summers?
A. Drive More 2.0%
B. Drive Less 69.0%
C. No Change in Driving 26.8%
D. Don't Know/ Refused....DO NOT OFFER 2.2%

3. Have rising gas prices forced you to postpone spending money on any other purchases you wanted to make?
A. Yes 59.0%
B. No 39.0%
C. Don't Know....DO NOT OFFER 1.4%
D. Refused...DO NOT OFFER 0.7%

Economy Questions

1. Generally speaking, do you think things in North Carolina are moving in the right direction? Or do you think things in North Carolina are moving in the wrong direction?
A. Right Track 44.7%
B. Wrong Track 43.2%
C. Don’t Know…DO NOT OFFER 11.7%
D. Refused…DO NOT OFFER 0.3%

2. Do you think North Carolina’s economy is stronger, weaker, or about the same as the nation’s economy?
A. Stronger than nation 16.8%
B. Weaker than nation 34.1%
C. About the same as nation 44.6%
D. Don’t Know…DO NOT OFFER 4.6%
E. Refused…DO NOT OFFER 0.0%

3. Thinking about six months from now, do you think it will be easier or harder for someone like you to find a job in North Carolina? Or do you think it will be the same as today?
A. Easier to find a job 12.7%
B. Harder to find a job 45.1%
C. About the same 37.5%
D. Don’t Know…DO NOT OFFER 3.7%
E. Refused…DO NOT OFFER 1.0%

4. Thinking about six months from now, do you think your income will be higher or lower than it is today? Or do you think your income will be about the same as today?
A. Higher income 25.9%
B. Lower income 12.0%
C. About the same income 61.4%
D. Don’t Know…DO NOT OFFER 0.5%
E. Refused…DO NOT OFFER 0.2%

5. In six months do you think you will have more money saved than you do today, less money saved than you do today, or will you have about the same amount of money saved as you do today?
A. More saved 32.0%
B. Less saved 25.3%
C. About the same saved 40.3%
D. Don’t Know…DO NOT OFFER 2.4%
E. Refused…DO NOT OFFER 0.0%