Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS will publish the results of a public opinion poll on Tuesday, one week ahead of the Aug. 11 primary.
However, instead of focusing on voters’ views on candidates seeking office, the questions will survey Vermonters on the Covid-19 crisis and race.
VPR/Vermont PBS surveys typically include questions about how Vermonters feel about economic issues, and major policies being considered by the Vermont Legislature.
According to Mark Davis, VPR’s managing editor, the organizations decided to focus their August poll on non-candidate issues given the “historic nature of these times.”
“We were really eager to hear from Vermonters about how they were experiencing the health crisis, the economic crisis, the racial strife,” Davis said.
“And at this moment, given limited resources and limited number of questions in the poll, we thought that was more important than sort of your typical horse race questions,” he said.
The poll will not contain questions about candidates’ name recognition, or which candidates Vermonters support.
Rich Clark, a professor of political science at Castleton University who is directing the August poll, said that in the wake of major issues the state is facing, including questions about the political races seemed “frivolous.”
“We waste a lot of real estate on horse race questions to predict something that’s going to happen instead of articulating the public view where there’s no other resource for doing that,” he said.
The poll released next week will reflect a survey of 603 respondents, and have a 4% margin of error.
A VPR/Vermont PBS poll in February, before the coronavirus crisis, had Scott up by more than 20 percentage points over his two likely rivals.
Davis noted that the forthcoming poll will ask Vermonters about whether they approve of how Gov. Phil Scott, the Republican incumbent seeking reelection, has handled the Covid-19 crisis and issues surrounding race.
Davis also said that VPR and Vermont PBS’s next poll, which will be released in late October, ahead of the November general election, will ask some “traditional political questions.”
In recent years, VPR and Vermont PBS have conducted the only statewide polling in Vermont.
WCAX used to conduct statewide polls, but hasn’t since 2016. Roger Garrity, the television station’s news director, said the price of polling has gone up, and has become too expensive. The Castleton Polling Institute, which used to team up with media organizations to do statewide polling, shut down in early 2018.
