POLL SHOWS WAYLAND VOTERS CONCERNED ABOUT EDUCATION, LOCAL AID CUTS; POSITIVE ON PERFORMANCE OF GOVERNOR ROMNEY, NEGATIVE ON PERFORMANCE OF PRESIDENT BUSH
Wayland: The first-ever exit poll conducted by the Wayland Democratic Town Committee (Wayland Democrats), has found that Wayland voters rank education, local aid cuts and taxes as the most important issues facing Wayland. The poll also found that 48% of voters rated Republican Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's performance in office either “somewhat positive” or very positive,” while only 30% had positive views of President Bush's performance. On the other hand, only 27% of voters gave “somewhat negative” or “very negative” marks to Romney, while fully 64% gave poor ratings to President Bush.
The Wayland Democrats' survey also found that, of voters who intend to vote in the upcoming Massachusetts Democratic Presidential Primary on March 2, 39% plan to vote for Vermont Governor Howard Dean, 15% for Senator John Kerry and 12% for Former General Wesley Clark. 25% of Wayland Democratic primary voters remain undecided.
Wayland voters were also asked to choose the traits most important in voting for state and local candidates. Most highly valued were a candidate's perceived honesty and intelligence, and the candidate's positions on issues.
“These polling results show that the vast majority of Wayland voters see education as the key issue for our town,” commented Jon Saxton, Chairman of the Wayland Democratic Town Committee. “Not surprising, virtually tied for a close second are local aid and taxes. And while voters appear supportive so far of the performance of Governor Romney, we were surprised at the overwhelmingly poor marks given to President Bush, even by most voters identifying themselves as Republicans.”
Of the respondents, 46% identified themselves as Independents, 37% as Democrats and 16% as Republicans. 62% of respondents were male, 38% female.
“This type of polling activity is new for us, but the response of voters was very positive,” said Saxton. “We intend to continue to gather and share this type of important data about key issues and views in our town.”
The Wayland Democrats' voter poll was conducted in cooperation with the Wayland High School Democrats and surveyed a random sample of the 2681 Wayland residents who voted in the Town's special election on November 18, 2003: 269 (10%) of the 2681 voters at the Town's two voting sites, the Wayland Town Building and the Wayland Middle School, completed the survey, which asked voters to respond to 10 questions on local and national issues, including basic demographic information.