To provide a portrait of political behavior and attitudes in the Mountain State , the Institute for Public Affairs at West Virginia University conducted a telephone survey of 501 randomly selected West Virginia residents in June 2005.

Full survey results, including tables, are available in the current issue of The Public Affairs Reporter (April 2006) and online at:http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/IPA/par/reporter23_1.pdfas part of �€?Citizen Evaluations of West Virginia Government: Stability and Change, 1992-2005.�€?

The Institute’s survey was conducted with support from the Department of Political Science, Division of Public Administration and Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at WVU .

The survey was designed to determine political knowledge and interest among state residents regarding West Virginia politics and government, their opinions concerning the performance of West Virginia’s elected officials, and their trust in government.

The respondents were also asked to identify the most important issues facing the state and which level of government they thought was best suited to deal with these issues.

A similar survey was done in 1992.

The 2005 survey revealed several noteworthy changes in West Virginians’political attitudes over the past 13 years. First, perceptions of the performance of the governor and state legislature have improved. It should also be noted that U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd received extremely high public opinion ratings in the survey, going into his 2006 re-election bid (66.4 percent excellent or good, 17.6 percent fair and only 10.4 percent poor).

Second, there appears to be a movement of independent voters into the ranks of the Republican Party. This movement is an indicator of a higher level of party competition in West Virginia . There is also a slight sharpening of the ideological divide between liberal and conservatives.

The survey also found a slight improvement in the perception of the honesty of state officials. In 1992, the majority of the respondents, 54.2 percent, rated state officials as honest and 1.7 percent of the respondents said very honest. In 2005, this number rose to 63.2 percent honest and 1.0 percent responding very honest. Although a combined 33.5 percent said state officials were dishonest or very dishonest in 1992, only 24 percent had those two responses in 2005. Finally, in 2005, respondents less frequently cited the economy and jobs as the primary issue facing state politicians. Now, they are more willing to believe that a federal rather than a state governmental response will best address this issue.

Both the 1992 and 2005 surveys revealed that West Virginians have a relatively low, albeit improving, opinion of state and local government job performance. Few respondents rated the performance of state or local government as excellent. Large percentages of West Virginians are still convinced that the state legislature is controlled

by special interest groups (38.2 percent), that the state’s political institutions are run by a few big interests looking out for themselves and not for the benefit of the people (57.2 percent), and that state government can only sometimes (58.6 percent) or almost never (13.2 percent) be trusted to do what is right. Thus, comparison of 1992 and 2005 shows both improvement in important areas of public opinion as well as some areas where citizens continue to hold substantial negative feelings about government in West Virginia .

The administration of the survey questionnaire replicates a study of the political attitudes of 517 West Virginia residents conducted by the Institute in June 1992. The surveys have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent.

For more information, contact Thomas K. Bias at the Institute for Public Affairs at (304) 293-3811 ext. 5295 or at Thomas.Bias@mail.wvu.edu .