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The Political Pulse of Westmont College, 2012 Dr. Tom Knecht
[email protected]
Summary. The 2012 Presidential Election is just around the
corner, which means it is time to check the political pulse of
Westmont College. This report details the findings of an online
survey sent to Westmont students, faculty, and staff in early
October 2012. Here are a few highlights:
Students and staff are largely Republicans (53 and 49 percent
respectively), faculty are likely to be Democrats (42 percent).
Mitt Romney is the candidate of choice for students (53 percent)
and staff (48 percent), but faculty plan to vote for Barack Obama
(63 percent).
Faculty are the most attentive to the upcoming election (85
percent), followed by staff (80 percent) and students (66
percent).
In terms of ideology, faculty tend to be liberal; students tend
to be conservative; and staff tend to be moderates.
There are significant differences in the way Westmont students,
faculty, and staff view most political problems.
Methods An online survey of 49-questions was distributed to
Westmont students, faculty, and staff in early October 2012. The
original version of this survey was created by former political
science major (now Westmont Admissions Counselor) Kurt Walker. Many
of the questions in the survey are standard queries found in public
opinion research; other questions, especially those related to
Christianity and politics, are of our own design. Respondents
include 321 students, 71 faculty members, and 80 staff. The most
important thing to keep in mind when reading this study is that it
is a non-random sample. Non-random samples warrant special caution
when generalizing from the results to a broader population. With
this caveat in mind, lets examine the results. Contents
I. PARTISAN IDENTIFICATION, VOTE, ATTENTION, AND IDEOLOGY II.
GROUP PERCEPTIONS III. POLICY IV. CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS V.
POLITICAL DISCUSSION AND ATTITUDINAL CHANGE AT
WESTMONT COLLEGE VI. CONCLUSION
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I. PARTISAN IDENTIFICATION, VOTE, ATTENTION, AND IDEOLOGY
There are significant differences in the party identification
(PID) of Westmont students, faculty and staff. While most students
and staff identify with the Republican Party (53 and 49 percent
respectively), faculty are more likely to be Democrats (42
percent). As a means of comparison, the American public is divided
between Democrats (35 percent), Republicans (28 percent), and
Independents (33 percent).
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Votes for president closely follow partisanship. Mitt Romney is
the candidate of choice for students (53 percent) and staff (48
percent), but faculty overwhelmingly plan to vote for Barack Obama
(63 percent).
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The Westmont community is paying close attention to the upcoming
election. Faculty are the most attentive (85 percent), followed by
staff (80 percent) and students (66 percent).
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The chart below shows how Westmont students, faculty, and staff
placed themselves along a seven-point continuum ranging from
extremely liberal (1) to extremely conservative (7). The results
show that the faculty tend to be liberal, students tend to be
conservative, and the staff is moderate.
The next two charts ask respondents to place the Democrat and
Republican parties on the same seven-point scale. Despite general
agreement that Democrats are liberal and Republicans are
conservative, there are statistically significant differences on
where students, faculty, and staff place the parties. Faculty view
the Democratic Party as more moderate and the Republican Party as
more extreme than do students and staff.
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II. GROUP PERCEPTIONS Having established a baseline of actual
partisan identification on campus, we were interested in how
faculty and students perceive PID on campus. Put differently, we
were interested in the extent to which student, faculty, and staff
perceptions of PID at Westmont matched actual distributions of PID
on campus. (Unfortunately, we did not ask questions about
perception of staff PID). Respondents were asked to estimate the
percentage of Westmont students and faculty who identified with a
particular party; they were also asked to estimate the distribution
of partisanship for faculty and staff at non-sectarian
institutions. For instance, a student might estimate that out of
100 percent of Westmont faculty, 33% are Democrats; 33% are
Republicans; and 33% are Independents. The following charts report
the means of those estimates. Three things stand out in these
charts. First, in general, the prediction of party identification
of various Westmont groups is fairly accurate. Second, students
tend to overestimate the number of Republicans among the Westmont
faculty. Third, the Westmont community views non-sectarian colleges
as a stronghold of the Democratic Party.
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III. POLICY
The following charts describe how Westmont students, faculty,
and staff view some of the important political issues of the day.
Some follow-up questions then ask respondents to identify where
they think the parties stand on these issues. Rather than
describing the results of each chart, we encourage the reader to
think about areas of agreement and disagreement between Westmont
students, faculty, and staff.
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IV. CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS
We were also interested in the relationship between Christianity
and politics. We began by asking respondents which political party
more closely followed biblical principles on eight contemporary
political issues. With the exception of gay marriage, there are
significant differences in how Westmont students, faculty, and
staff view the political parties (asterisks by the question
indicate statistical significance). Which party do you feel more
closely follows biblical principles on
Students Faculty Staff
War in Afghanistan*** Democrats 14% 11% 8% Republicans 31% 9%
10% Not much Difference/Neither 55% 81% 82%
Health Care** Democrats 48% 70% 50% Republicans 24% 8% 19% Not
much Difference/Neither 29% 22% 31%
Protecting the environment** Democrats 51% 71% 56% Republicans
13% 5% 5% Not much Difference/Neither 36% 24% 39%
Foreign Aid*** Democrats 21% 40% 28% Republicans 34% 4% 12% Not
much Difference/Neither 46% 56% 60%
Dealing with Poverty*** Democrats 49% 72% 56% Republicans 24%
12% 6% Not much Difference/Neither 27% 16% 38%
Death Penalty** Democrats 29% 32% 22% Republicans 38% 22% 24%
Not much Difference/Neither 33% 46% 57%
Abortion* Democrats 1% 4% 5% Republicans 88% 68% 86% Not much
Difference/Neither 11% 29% 9%
Gay marriage Democrats 13% 26% 11% Republicans 75% 53% 64% Not
much Difference/Neither 12% 21% 25%
p < .05* p < .01** p < .001***
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We are also interested in what the Westmont community thinks is
the most important problem (MIP) facing America today. Political
Science major Lauren Burson went through the considerable work of
coding each open-ended response into general categories. Perhaps
the most interesting finding is that there appears to be little
connect between what people think is the most important political
problem (the economy) and what they think the Bible calls us to
attend to (poverty). MIP Percent Bible MIP Percent Economy 23.4
Poverty 18.8 Debt/budget/finances 15.6 gay marriage 8.4
Political polarization 7.8
loving your neighbor/caring for those in need
5.8
Decline of morality/spirituality
6.8 Human dignity-equality/rights/liberty
5.2
Jobs/Unemployment 5.4 Economy 4.5 Foreign Policy 4.9 Foreign
Policy 4.5 Education 4.4 Environment 4.5
The gap between the rich and the poor/the disappearance of the
middle class
4.4
Healthcare
4.5
Big government 4.4 abortion/protection of
life 4.5
War/Terrorism 2.4
religious freedom/separation of church and state
4.5
Climate Change 2.0 War/Terrorism 3.9
Human dignity/equality/rights/liberty
2.0 stewardship- especially being stewards with our money
3.9
Move toward socialism 1.5 debt/budget/finances 3.2 Environment
1.5 Jobs/Unemployment 2.6 Energy/oil prices 1.5 Foreign aid 2.6
Healthcare 1.5 preserving the
sanctity of marriage 2.6
Campaign finance 1.5 justice 2.6 An incapable government 1.5
peace 2.6
The American public
1.5 The gap between the rich and the poor/the disappearance of
the middle class
1.9
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Poverty 1.0
morality and the decline in morality/spirituality
1.9
Government programs cost too much
1.0 Climate Change
1.3
Leadership and specific candidates
1.0 Education
1.3
Abortion/protection of life
0.5
Big government/too much government power and involvement
1.3
Immigration 0.5 Leadership and
specific candidates 1.3
Government programs are being cut
0.5 polarization/inability of the two parties to compromise and
respect one another
0.6
Foreign aid
0.5 problems involving the character of the general American
public
0.6
Gay marriage/rights 0.5 Peace 0.5 Religious freedom/separation
of church and state
0.5
V. POLITICAL DISCUSSION AND ATTITUDINAL CHANGE AT WESTMONT
COLLEGE
Finally, we were interested in political deliberation and
attitudinal change on campus. More specifically, we explore 1) the
extent to which students changed their political opinion since
coming to Westmont, 2) how much attitudinal instability, if any,
can be traced back to the faculty, 3) whether students felt it
appropriate for professors to express their political views in
class, and 4) how often professors present their own political
views in class.
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Have your political views changed since coming
Have your political views changed since coming to Westmont
Colle
Not at allNot muchSomew hatA great deal
Perc
ent
40
30
20
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0
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VI. CONCLUSION I hope that you have found this research
interesting. I also hope these findings spark additional dialog on
campus about politics in general, and the intersection between
Christianity and politics in particular. Thank you for
participating in this study. If you would like to know more, please
feel free to email or call me. Please vote Tuesday, November 6!
Thank you, Tom Knecht Associate Professor of Political Science
Westmont College [email protected]