Results Offer New Insights on CA Voter Opinion on Gas Prices, Taxes, Contraception and Online Piracy
PRESS CALL TODAY, 10 A.M. PST: Voters Blame Oil Companies, Not Obama, for High Gas Prices
Contact: Suzanne Wu at (213) 740-0252 or suzanne.wu@usc.edu; Michelle Salzman at (213) 821-9311 or msalzman@dornsife.usc.edu
LOS ANGELES — April 12, 2012 — The USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences today announced the results of its new experiment in online political polling, which found that California voters do not blame President Obama for the rising gasoline prices that they have experienced.
Although the new online survey does reflect findings from a recent USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll conducted by phone that shows state voters give Obama poor marks for the way he has handled the issue, the more detailed series of online questions indicates Californians are much more likely to blame oil companies and unrest in the Middle East for high gas prices than either the president or U.S. Congress.
The USC Dornsife online survey found that 63 percent of voters disapprove of President Obama’s handling of gas prices, and 27 percent approved. But only 13 percent of California voters said Obama was to blame for higher gas prices and about 6 percent blamed the U.S. Congress. In contrast, 21 percent of voters blamed “problems in the Middle East” and 38 percent blamed oil companies.
“We are extremely proud that the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times phone poll was the most accurate in California during the last election cycle, and we intend to match that accomplishment this year,” said Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll. “This online experiment is designed to complement our existing phone poll and to help us understand the way California voters are thinking in even more detail. The online survey gives us the ability to ask more questions than a phone poll, to explore the opinions of specific voter groups in greater detail, and to provide more information to our respondents before they offer their opinions on key issues.”
This in-depth survey is the first of its kind to explore in detail DTS (or independent) voters’ opinions on many of today’s most controversial political and environmental issues and that is being shared with the broader public.
