evolution

Unfortunately, the eleven cents I have made through blogging does not go very far these days, so I have to make a living somehow. Therefore, I am late to the SurveyUSA party once again.

About a month ago, SurveyUSA did a poll of 600 Kansans, most of whom identified themselves as registered voters. I wrote an analysis here.

In it, I suggested that the same poll be run again a few months later. That is what SurveyUSA did, and the results of that poll are here. I assume that the poll will be repeated throughout the 2006 election.

You’ll notice few differences from the last poll. Much of the analysis I wrote then carries to now. Viewing the tracking graphs will tell you that overall, not much has changed. There have been some subtle changes when you look at how things broke down by race, political affiliation, and ideological identification.

Among Hispanics, the single greatest determining factor in the previous poll for how a given respondent would vote was the candidate’s stance on illegal immigration. Now, it’s taxes and education funding — and illegal immigration has pretty much dropped off the radar. (It could be argued that those things are all related — in fact, they are.) I don’t like talking about racial polling data, but there it is. There were wide variations between the two polls’ breakdowns on race, but this is most likely due to the composition of the sample.

Conservative concern about candidates’ illegal immigration stances has dropped off somewhat — their attention has been shifted to abortion and taxes. The change across all groups in stances on sex education are close to the margin as well.

It’s heartening to note that there was a slight uptick support for proper science education and a decrease in support for “alternatives” (Which alternatives would those be?) to evolution in schools. These upticks have been across all subgroups — except Republicans, naturally. Even among those who identified as “conservatives”, support for proper science education increased. It’s the start of a positive trend for those looking to stay with a conservative or Republican candidate for their Board of Education district and still be able to bounce the Creationists out.

The other biggie in Kansas is school funding, and although there was a slight overall increase in support for a tax increase, the amount of the increase was close to the margin. The “Other” option was still the most popular — the others that were in the poll were “Cut funding”, “School consolidation”, and “Not sure”.

What this latest poll tells me is that Kansans still haven’t quite made up their minds what’s important to them for this election cycle, but I expect those things to crystallize as the candidates’ stances become clearer.

And no, I can’t do it myself. The Commissar has the list of candidates you ought to be looking at for the Board of Education in November.