Executive summary. The overall idea of this survey is to find out the spirits of constituency before the next presidential election in the United States. However, instead of concentrating on specific public figures and candidates I chose to focus on more general trends, on what people generally like and dislike in the electoral process and how they appreciate the work of their chosen ones.
Introduction and background. The idea of the survey I have carried out consists in the attempt to find out the trends in sympathies as per the candidates running for the presidential office in 2016 among people that come from the same social group as me. Also, the survey provides for a possibility of a brief evaluation of general perception of the electoral process and people’s interest in it. It is important to mention that I did not operate with specific names and surnames, I chose to rather trace partisan preferences and the overall indicators of potential candidates’ proficiency.
Methodology. My two first questions were very simple, they sought to find out how old respondents were and what sex they belonged to. These are actually the obligatory elements for any survey because age and sex usually belong to the principal division lines in any society, that is why the answers to these questions are so vital to learn. Usually males and females have far bigger differences than different groups of just males or females. The same goes for age groups. What students of 21-25 deem to be a perfect policy may seem to be too liberal for adults of over 50.
The third question asking to what extent a given respondent is interested in national politics has two goals: to find out the actual interest of a person in politics and to understand how credible the answers to the following questions may be. What I mean is that the opinion of people who indicate that they, say, are almost not interested in national politics is not likely to be very reliable.
The fourth question dealt with the probability of the next president being a woman. Of course, Hillary Clinton is meant in this question, but this one has also double goal: to find out the popularity of Hillary Clinton and to understand how really important for the society is the concept of equality.
The fifth question meant to find out how many people had already decided who they would vote for. Apart from the goal to learn the actual number there was another one – again, to understand the credibility I can take towards the responses of these people.
The last two questions touched upon the general impression of people from how politics is conducted in the United States. That is why I asked how often does it happen, in the opinion of the respondents, that politicians comply with expectations of constituency and what part of politicians they deem to be most credible.
Almost 59 percent of respondents are aged 21-25, a little bit than quarter being 18-20 and the only the total of 14 percent being older than 25.
58 percent of respondents were men, 42 constituting women, accordingly.
A little bit more than 48 percent of respondents admitted to be moderately interested in national politics. Only 7 percent are extremely interested, 14 having confessed to be very interested and almost 9 percent admitting their indifference.
A little bit more than 48 percent (a very eloquent coincidence, by the way) admitted to be anticipating that the next US president will be a woman. 34 percent admitted it to be very likely whereas 3,5 and 12,5 think this to be an extremely likely and not very likely scenarios accordingly. At the same time only 57 percent of respondents are ready to vote, the rest 43 percent not having made their mind yet.
Finally, about 56 percent of respondents think that Democrats are the ones doing everything mostly right in power, with only 22 percent having an analogical approach towards Republicans.
Conclusions. Therefore, from the survey I have carried out I can conclude the following things. First of all, only about half of the age group has moderate interest in politics, which is bad because this age group is potentially the most fruitful in terms of bringing in ideas and policies. Secondly, about a half of respondents anticipating the next president being a woman shows us that democratic principles are becoming more widespread and incrementally push conservative thinking into the background. Thirdly, the division as per the support of different political groups shows us that Democrats really are more popular these days which promises them good positions in the forthcoming elections whoever the final candidates happen to be.
Appendices. See screenshots.
There are no recommendations because the survey was targeted at finding out the sentiments of constituency and not at who is a better candidate in the presidential race.
