December 17, 2007

WPRI Poll: Wisconsin Residents Very Disillusioned with Their State Government and Political Institutions

Citizens Very Pessimistic About the Direction of the State and the State’s Economy

A Large Majority Now View Themselves as Political Independents and Strongly Favor Term Limits for State Elected Officials

The views of Wisconsin residents toward their state and political establishments are reaching all time lows in Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) polling. Only 11% of Wisconsin residents believe the state’s economy will improve over the next year, while just 19% believe their family’s economic situation will improve in the upcoming year. Only 34% believe that the state is heading the right direction, while 56% believe it is on the wrong track.

Politically things are even worse: only 30% have a favorable view of George Bush, while just 41% have a positive view of Governor Jim Doyle. These numbers are actually high when one considers survey respondents views on the ethical make up of state government. Only 2% believe they can trust state government to do what is right almost all the time. Just 6% believe that the ethics of the state legislature have gotten better over the last decade. Just 12% believe that voters have the power to determine what their state government spends, 82% believe that it is lobbying groups. Only 7% believe the ethics of state government have gotten better during the last ten years.

Politically 40% of Wisconsin residents now view themselves as Independents, significantly above the 29% who consider themselves Democrats and the 25% who consider themselves Republican. An overwhelming 72% of Wisconsin residents now favor a constitutional change to limit all state elected officials to no more than eight years in office. These are the key findings from the most recent survey of 600 Wisconsin residents conducted by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, Inc. and Diversified Research between December 2 and 3, 2007.

For full poll results, click here.

The State’s Economy

Only 11% of Wisconsin’s residents thought that the state’s economy would improve over the next year, while 46% said that it would get worse. These are the lowest results in the twenty years WPRI has been polling the state of Wisconsin. Pessimism was greatest in Green Bay, La Crosse/Eau Claire and the Racine/Kenosha area where only 6% of the respondents said the economy would improve, while in Madison only 8% thought the state’s economy would improve. Ideologically only 8% of Liberals thought the economy would improve, only 5% of Blacks were optimistic and, perhaps the most startling number, only 8% of women were optimistic about the state’s economy improving over the next year compared to 14% of male respondents. Respondent’s concerns for their own family economic circumstances over the next year were only slightly better with 19% thinking their family would improve, while 19% thought it would get worse. These are some of the lowest numbers in twenty years of tracking this poll question. It was lowest in Madison where only 10% were optimistic. In Racine/Kenosha optimism was at 13% and in La Crosse 14%. There was a large split between males and females; only 15% of women thought their family’s economic situation would improve over the next year compared to 24% of men.

Direction of the State

Thirty-four percent of Wisconsin residents believe the state is going in the right direction, while 56% believe it has gotten off on the wrong track. While these numbers are very bad news for the state, they are actually better than Wisconsinites’ views about the country. Only 19% thought the country was going in the right direction and 76% thought it was on the wrong track. The Wisconsin right direction numbers are interesting because the most pessimistic people live in the city of Milwaukee where only 22% thought the state was going in the right direction while in the Milwaukee suburbs only 18% thought the state was going in the right direction. The wrong track in Milwaukee was 76% and it was 74% in the Milwaukee suburbs. There was almost no demographic group that thought the state was going in the right direction. It is not surprising that politically the President and the Governor also did not do well in the survey. George Bush’s political standing is at an all time low in Wisconsin, only 30% of our respondents have a favorable view of him, while 61% have an unfavorable view. These are the lowest numbers we have ever recorded on the President going back to July 1999. Jim Doyle’s favorability is at 41%, while his unfavorables are at 37%. Clearly these are much better numbers than those of President Bush, but they are hardly awe-inspiring.

View of State Government and State Politics

We asked one question about state spending. Did respondents think state government spent too much, too little, or just about the right amount of tax dollars? 62% thought they spent too much, only 11% thought they spent too little, and 17% said they thought they spent the right amount. We then asked whether or not they thought Wisconsin taxpayers received good value for the state taxes they pay. 33% thought they received a good value, while 55% thought they received a poor value.

We then asked who had the most power over state government spending? 82% said lobbying groups have the most power to determine what state government spends while only 12% said voters have the most power to determine state spending.

We also asked specific questions about residents felt about the ethics in state government and politics. The question was asked whether residents thought the standard of ethics in Wisconsin state government had gotten better, worse or stayed the same in the last ten years. Only 7% thought it had gotten better, 50% thought it was worse and 38% thought it had stayed the same. We then asked whether the standard of ethics of the members of the state legislature had changed over the last decade. Only 6% thought the standard of ethics of members of the state legislature had gotten better, 44% thought it had gotten worse and 43% thought it had stayed about the same. We then asked respondents whose interests they thought their elected officials represented the most – their interests, special interests or the politicians own interests. Only 10% thought that their elected officials represented the voters’ interests; 43% thought they represented special interests and 42% thought they represented the elected officials interests.

Finally we asked how much of the time do you think you can trust state government to do what is right – just about always, most of the time or only some of the time? Only 2% of the respondents to this survey thought that their state government would do what is right just about always. 24% said most of the time, while 70% said only some of the time.

Political Identification

One of the questions asked since 1995 is whether survey respondents identify themselves as a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent. In this survey 40% said they identified themselves as an Independent, 29% said Democrat and 25% said Republican. Since WPRI began tracking political identification these are the highest numbers for Independents. Demographics were very instructive with some interesting splits. In the Kenosha/Racine area 55% of respondents describe themselves as Independent as did 47% of those living in the city of Milwaukee. In the Madison area, as well as out-state Wisconsin, 44% also said they were Independent. The only area of the state where Independents trailed the two parties was in La Crosse/Eau Claire where only 20% said they were Independents. Age-wise there were some interesting groupings. Among young people between 18 and 24, 50% said they considered themselves Independent, while among senior citizens 65 or older 42% said they considered themselves Independent. That was a remarkable change considering that senior citizens are usually not thought of as Independents, but rather as traditional members of either the Republican or Democratic Party. Among various religious groups, 43% of Protestants who responded to the question, as opposed to 35% of Catholics, said that they were Independents. One of the more important parts of the demographic profile was gender – 45% of males said that they now considered themselves Independent while 36% of females considered themselves Independent. However, among females 35% said they were Democrats and 22% said they were Republicans, so that Independents still outnumbered each party among women.

In the twelve years WPRI has been tracking this question in Wisconsin this is the first time that Independents have been higher than either political party, and it is substantially higher as the attached chart demonstrates.

Term Limits

Finally we asked residents whether they would favor a state constitutional amendment to limit state elected officials to no more than eight years in office. The result was 72% favored this idea while only 22% opposed it. There was no demographic group in the state that did not strongly favor some sort of term limits on our elected officials. There was even support from Liberals, with 58% versus 38% opposing, and Democrats where 66% favored the idea while 38% opposed it. This question was last asked in September 1990 with almost the exact same results. In the 1990 survey 71% favored limiting elected officials to no more than eight years in office and only 24% opposed it. This may be an idea whose time has come.

Summary

There is little doubt in this poll that something extraordinary is happening in Wisconsin. Years of political neglect by their elected officials are beginning to have a serious toll on the confidence of Wisconsin residents in elected officials and their state government. The lack of optimism is seen in all aspects of life in Wisconsin today, whether it is the state’s economy, the ethics of state government and elected officials or the dominance of lobbying in the political process. Wisconsin residents are extremely unhappy and becoming more and more disconnected from their government and the state’s politics. The fact that 40% of Wisconsinites identify themselves as political Independents would have been unheard of five years ago. They now see where term limits could be one way of dealing with politicians who seem to have little interest in what their constituents really want or need. The issues of lobbying, state ethics and the state’s economy has never been more on the mind of Wisconsin residents. It would not be surprising if, in 2008, Wisconsin voters send a message that will be even louder than the one sent in 2006.