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The Political Pulse of Westmont College, 2012 Dr. Tom Knecht

tknecht@westmont.edu

Summary. The 2012 Presidential Election is just around the corner, which means it is time to check the political pulse of Westmont College. This report details the findings of an online survey sent to Westmont students, faculty, and staff in early October 2012. Here are a few highlights:

Students and staff are largely Republicans (53 and 49 percent respectively), faculty are likely to be Democrats (42 percent).

Mitt Romney is the candidate of choice for students (53 percent) and staff (48 percent), but faculty plan to vote for Barack Obama (63 percent).

Faculty are the most attentive to the upcoming election (85 percent), followed by staff (80 percent) and students (66 percent).

In terms of ideology, faculty tend to be liberal; students tend to be conservative; and staff tend to be moderates.

There are significant differences in the way Westmont students, faculty, and staff view most political problems.

Methods An online survey of 49-questions was distributed to Westmont students, faculty, and staff in early October 2012. The original version of this survey was created by former political science major (now Westmont Admissions Counselor) Kurt Walker. Many of the questions in the survey are standard queries found in public opinion research; other questions, especially those related to Christianity and politics, are of our own design. Respondents include 321 students, 71 faculty members, and 80 staff. The most important thing to keep in mind when reading this study is that it is a non-random sample. Non-random samples warrant special caution when generalizing from the results to a broader population. With this caveat in mind, lets examine the results. Contents

I. PARTISAN IDENTIFICATION, VOTE, ATTENTION, AND IDEOLOGY II. GROUP PERCEPTIONS III. POLICY IV. CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS V. POLITICAL DISCUSSION AND ATTITUDINAL CHANGE AT

WESTMONT COLLEGE VI. CONCLUSION

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I. PARTISAN IDENTIFICATION, VOTE, ATTENTION, AND IDEOLOGY

There are significant differences in the party identification (PID) of Westmont students, faculty and staff. While most students and staff identify with the Republican Party (53 and 49 percent respectively), faculty are more likely to be Democrats (42 percent). As a means of comparison, the American public is divided between Democrats (35 percent), Republicans (28 percent), and Independents (33 percent).

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Votes for president closely follow partisanship. Mitt Romney is the candidate of choice for students (53 percent) and staff (48 percent), but faculty overwhelmingly plan to vote for Barack Obama (63 percent).

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The Westmont community is paying close attention to the upcoming election. Faculty are the most attentive (85 percent), followed by staff (80 percent) and students (66 percent).

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The chart below shows how Westmont students, faculty, and staff placed themselves along a seven-point continuum ranging from extremely liberal (1) to extremely conservative (7). The results show that the faculty tend to be liberal, students tend to be conservative, and the staff is moderate.

The next two charts ask respondents to place the Democrat and Republican parties on the same seven-point scale. Despite general agreement that Democrats are liberal and Republicans are conservative, there are statistically significant differences on where students, faculty, and staff place the parties. Faculty view the Democratic Party as more moderate and the Republican Party as more extreme than do students and staff.

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II. GROUP PERCEPTIONS Having established a baseline of actual partisan identification on campus, we were interested in how faculty and students perceive PID on campus. Put differently, we were interested in the extent to which student, faculty, and staff perceptions of PID at Westmont matched actual distributions of PID on campus. (Unfortunately, we did not ask questions about perception of staff PID). Respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of Westmont students and faculty who identified with a particular party; they were also asked to estimate the distribution of partisanship for faculty and staff at non-sectarian institutions. For instance, a student might estimate that out of 100 percent of Westmont faculty, 33% are Democrats; 33% are Republicans; and 33% are Independents. The following charts report the means of those estimates. Three things stand out in these charts. First, in general, the prediction of party identification of various Westmont groups is fairly accurate. Second, students tend to overestimate the number of Republicans among the Westmont faculty. Third, the Westmont community views non-sectarian colleges as a stronghold of the Democratic Party.

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III. POLICY

The following charts describe how Westmont students, faculty, and staff view some of the important political issues of the day. Some follow-up questions then ask respondents to identify where they think the parties stand on these issues. Rather than describing the results of each chart, we encourage the reader to think about areas of agreement and disagreement between Westmont students, faculty, and staff.

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IV. CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS

We were also interested in the relationship between Christianity and politics. We began by asking respondents which political party more closely followed biblical principles on eight contemporary political issues. With the exception of gay marriage, there are significant differences in how Westmont students, faculty, and staff view the political parties (asterisks by the question indicate statistical significance). Which party do you feel more closely follows biblical principles on

Students Faculty Staff

War in Afghanistan*** Democrats 14% 11% 8% Republicans 31% 9% 10% Not much Difference/Neither 55% 81% 82%

Health Care** Democrats 48% 70% 50% Republicans 24% 8% 19% Not much Difference/Neither 29% 22% 31%

Protecting the environment** Democrats 51% 71% 56% Republicans 13% 5% 5% Not much Difference/Neither 36% 24% 39%

Foreign Aid*** Democrats 21% 40% 28% Republicans 34% 4% 12% Not much Difference/Neither 46% 56% 60%

Dealing with Poverty*** Democrats 49% 72% 56% Republicans 24% 12% 6% Not much Difference/Neither 27% 16% 38%

Death Penalty** Democrats 29% 32% 22% Republicans 38% 22% 24% Not much Difference/Neither 33% 46% 57%

Abortion* Democrats 1% 4% 5% Republicans 88% 68% 86% Not much Difference/Neither 11% 29% 9%

Gay marriage Democrats 13% 26% 11% Republicans 75% 53% 64% Not much Difference/Neither 12% 21% 25%

p < .05* p < .01** p < .001***

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We are also interested in what the Westmont community thinks is the most important problem (MIP) facing America today. Political Science major Lauren Burson went through the considerable work of coding each open-ended response into general categories. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that there appears to be little connect between what people think is the most important political problem (the economy) and what they think the Bible calls us to attend to (poverty). MIP Percent Bible MIP Percent Economy 23.4 Poverty 18.8 Debt/budget/finances 15.6 gay marriage 8.4

Political polarization 7.8

loving your neighbor/caring for those in need

5.8

Decline of morality/spirituality

6.8 Human dignity-equality/rights/liberty

5.2

Jobs/Unemployment 5.4 Economy 4.5 Foreign Policy 4.9 Foreign Policy 4.5 Education 4.4 Environment 4.5

The gap between the rich and the poor/the disappearance of the middle class

4.4

Healthcare

4.5

Big government 4.4 abortion/protection of

life 4.5

War/Terrorism 2.4

religious freedom/separation of church and state

4.5

Climate Change 2.0 War/Terrorism 3.9

Human dignity/equality/rights/liberty

2.0 stewardship- especially being stewards with our money

3.9

Move toward socialism 1.5 debt/budget/finances 3.2 Environment 1.5 Jobs/Unemployment 2.6 Energy/oil prices 1.5 Foreign aid 2.6

Healthcare 1.5 preserving the

sanctity of marriage 2.6

Campaign finance 1.5 justice 2.6 An incapable government 1.5 peace 2.6

The American public

1.5 The gap between the rich and the poor/the disappearance of the middle class

1.9

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Poverty 1.0

morality and the decline in morality/spirituality

1.9

Government programs cost too much

1.0 Climate Change

1.3

Leadership and specific candidates

1.0 Education

1.3

Abortion/protection of life

0.5

Big government/too much government power and involvement

1.3

Immigration 0.5 Leadership and

specific candidates 1.3

Government programs are being cut

0.5 polarization/inability of the two parties to compromise and respect one another

0.6

Foreign aid

0.5 problems involving the character of the general American public

0.6

Gay marriage/rights 0.5 Peace 0.5 Religious freedom/separation of church and state

0.5

V. POLITICAL DISCUSSION AND ATTITUDINAL CHANGE AT WESTMONT COLLEGE

Finally, we were interested in political deliberation and attitudinal change on campus. More specifically, we explore 1) the extent to which students changed their political opinion since coming to Westmont, 2) how much attitudinal instability, if any, can be traced back to the faculty, 3) whether students felt it appropriate for professors to express their political views in class, and 4) how often professors present their own political views in class.

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Have your political views changed since coming

Have your political views changed since coming to Westmont Colle

Not at allNot muchSomew hatA great deal

Perc

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VI. CONCLUSION I hope that you have found this research interesting. I also hope these findings spark additional dialog on campus about politics in general, and the intersection between Christianity and politics in particular. Thank you for participating in this study. If you would like to know more, please feel free to email or call me. Please vote Tuesday, November 6! Thank you, Tom Knecht Associate Professor of Political Science Westmont College tknecht@westmont.edu