©THE ELWAY POLL 06 JAN 15 6 JANUARY 2016 Jay Inslee Leads Bill Bryant by Just 9 Points in Race for Governor Governor Jay Inslee has a race on his hands. With only 39% of voters polled inclined to vote for his reelection, Inslee led Seattle Port Commissioner Bill Bryant by just 9 points in last week’s Elway Poll. Every election is largely a referendum on the incumbent, and this one is starting out to be just that. The story early in this election year is Inslee’s apparent vulnerability. But just how vulnerable is he? Two factors dominate voter thinking about this race at the dawn of the election year: partisanship and opinions about Inslee. In what presages a highly partisan race, the number one reason volunteered by supporters of both candidates was their party af iliation: 37% of Inslee supporters said they were supporting him because he is a Democrat; while RACE FOR GOVERNOR 28% of Bryant supporters said their support was based on him INSLEE being a Republican. UNDEC In addition to party identi ication, Bryant’s support was based on the fact that he is not Jay Inslee. In a survey of voters a BRYANT 30 39 month ago, Bryant had just 10% name recognition statewide— far lower than his support in this survey. Of those inclined to support Bryant in this survey, half gave as their reason a dislike 31 of Inslee (28%) or their belief that a change is needed (22%). In the Elway Poll last July, 25% of respondents said they were likely to vote for “the Republican challenger” to Jay Inslee. Bry- As things stand today, are you inclined to vote for Democrat incumbent Jay Inslee or Republican challenger Bill Bryant? ant ran 5 points better than a generic Republican. But Inslee did 9 points better against Bryant than he did against that generic INSLEE VS BRYANT & GENERIC Republican. Net 4 points to Inslee. REPUBLICAN In this survey: 82% of Democrats supported Inslee; 39 80% of Republicans supported Bryant; BRYANT 49% of Independents were undecided. 30 Bryant already has most of the mileage he is going to get out INSLEE REPUBLICAN of his party identi ication and his not-Inslee-ness. He ran 8 points ahead of the proportion of self-identi ied Republicans in 30 GENERIC this survey. Even so, he is not yet up to John Carlson’s record- REPUBLICAN 25 low Republican vote total of 40% in 2000, when Republican party identi ication was running 10 points higher than it is now. Bryant will have to ind the 21 points he needs to get to 51% Reason for Supporting somewhere else. (open-ended) Jay Inslee, meanwhile, has his own work to do. He ran 4 INSLEE BRYANT points ahead of the number of self-identi ied Democrats in this survey, but 19% of all respondents in last July’s survey said they Democrat 37% Republican 28% preferred another Democrat for Governor. There are many more Performance 34% Dislike Inslee 28% Democrats than Republicans in Washington and there is not anSpecific Issues 18% Need Change 22% other Democrat in this race, so Inslee’s obvious irst task is con- CharacterisƟcs 14% Philosophy 10% vince those disaffected Democratic voters that he is their guy. If Philosophy 8% Specific Issues 9% he does that, he is almost home. RepresentaƟon 8% Budget/Taxes 7% © THE ELWAY POLL (2016) Excerpts may be quoted with attribution. ©THE ELWAY POLL Sample Profile 500 registered voters, selected at random from voter lists in Washington state, were interviewed Dec 28-30, 2015 by live, professional interviewers. 21% of the interviews were conducted on cell phones. The margin of sampling error is ±4.5% at the 95% level of confidence. This means, in theory, had this same survey been conducted 100 times, the results would be within ±4.5% of the results reported here at least 95 times. REGION King County ............................................ 30% Pierce/Kitsap .......................................... 14% No. Puget Sound .................................... 17% Western WA ........................................... 20% Eastern WA ............................................ 20% GENDER Male........................................................ 47% Female ................................................... 53% PARTY IDENTIFICATION Democrat ................................................ 34% Republican ............................................ 22% Independent ........................................... 44% AGE 18-35 ........................................................ 8% 36-50 ...................................................... 20% 51-64 ...................................................... 40% 65+ ......................................................... 31% EDUCATION LEVEL High School or Less ............................... 17% Some College / Voc-Tech ...................... 26% College Degree ...................................... 35% Graduate School .................................... 20% HOUSEHOLD INCOME <$50,000 ................................................ 26% $50-75,000 ............................................. 23% $75-100,000 ........................................... 17% $100,000+ .............................................. 22% No Answer .............................................. 12% VOTE HISTORY 0 votes in last 4 elections ....................... 11% 1-2 votes................................................. 35% 3 votes .................................................... 20% 4 votes .................................................... 34% The Elway Poll The Elway Poll is an independent, non-partisan analysis of public opinion in Washington and the Northwest. PROPRIETARY QUESTIONS: Each quarter, space is reserved in the questionnaire to allow for proprietary questions. The fee for proprietary questions is $1000 per question. You will receive the results of your question(s) with full crosstabulations within two days after the interviews are completed. 06 JAN 15 Inslee’s Eroding Job Ratings Jay Inslee’s job performance ratings have declined slightly every 6 months since his irst anniversary in of ice. In rating his overall performance and each of four aspects of the job of Governor, a majority of voters in this survey said he is doing a “poor” or “only fair” The biggest change since last July was a drop from 41% to 33%in the positive marks for “articulating a vision of the future of the state.” OVERALL JOB PERFORMANCE ONLY FAIR+ POOR EXCELLENT + GOOD MANAGING STATE GOVERNMENT 49 50 50 53 55 58 40 45 43 42 41 39 JUL-13 JAN-14 JUL-14 JAN-15 JUL-15 JAN-16 47 52 51 56 59 57 40 39 39 38 34 36 JUL-13 JAN-14 JUL-14 JAN-15 JUL-15 JAN-16 53 51 50 56 60 60 35 37 35 34 33 31 JUL-13 JAN-14 JUL-14 JAN-15 JUL-15 JAN-16 47 51 50 51 53 37 40 38 41 41 JUL-13 JAN-14 JUL-14 JAN-15 JUL-15 JAN-16 43 46 46 47 48 51 41 42 42 42 44 41 JUL-13 JAN-14 JUL-15 JAN-15 JUN-15 JAN-16 ONLY FAIR+ POOR EXCELLENT + GOOD PROVIDING LEADERSHIP TO THE LEGISLATURE ONLY FAIR+ POOR EXCELLENT + GOOD ARTICULATING A VISION OF THE FUTURE OF WA ONLY FAIR+ POOR EXCELLENT + GOOD REPRESENTING WA TO THE COUNTRY AND WORLD ONLY FAIR+ POOR The Elway Poll Seattle, WA 206/264-1500 FAX: 264-0301 epoll@elwayresearch.com 61 EXCELLENT + GOOD 33 2