With the election mercifully in the rear view mirror Chapel Hill political observers will now shift their focus to the appointment of a replacement for Bill Strom.
Our poll found voters in town evenly divided on whether one of the losing candidates in yesterday's election should be appointed to fill the Strom seat- 38% in favor, 38% opposed, and 24% unsure.
Trumping that finding with the loss of Jim Merritt though is probably the question we asked about whether Chapel Hillians thought it was important to have an African American on the Town Council. 57% of voters said yes to that with just 28% dissenting, and I imagine given the strong support from the community that's the direction the Council will now go in with the appointment.
Two other key findings from the poll, neither of which is particularly surprising given the returns. 51% of Chapel Hill voters support publicly financed elections with only 31% opposed. Given Mark Kleinschmidt's win and Penny Rich's first place finish it's clear there was no backlash from that and it's even possible the opposite was true.
Although I personally believe the pro-business/pro-environment construct of the election was a false dichotomy, the results of the election reflect voters' preferences on that front. 44% of town residents would prefer the Council make protecting the environment a higher priority while 39% said it should be protecting business. That's roughly how the votes played out in the Council race.
Full results here
Issues:
Comments
Impact of endorsements
Did your polling reveal anything useful about the impact of endorsements on our local races?
Not sure what the polling says
but the Indy had a 1 to 1 match on the school board candidates. I think there were so many good candidates that I'm happy with the results, but I did so want MaryAnne to get elected. I hope she can find ways to her voice & thoughts involved in the future of our schools.
You say it's the full
You say it's the full results but when I click on it it only shows me 11 questions, which is several fewer than I answered before it cut me off. I'd like to see the rest of it.When you refer to publicly financed elections / VOE I appreciate you using the accurate phrasing rather than the inaccurate and politicaly charged version. I'm glad to see the poll showed that a plurality, albeit by a small margin, think that CH town gov't shouldn't be spending it's time and effort expressing opinions on national and international issues. That has always disappointed me, be it in CH or elsewhere. There is exactly one entity charged with running the town of CH but there are a million different outlets for people to comment on national and international issues. When functioning as the CH town gov't the officeholders ought to run the town gov't. Then at other times they or anyone else can do whatever they want with regard to national and international issues.
Sample
Tom, Was the sample for this second poll the same "likely voters" or did you do something with the BOE absentee list to try to approximate an exit poll?Thanks.