Justin Brown

Mr. Ferlo
Political Science 1100
February 22, 2016

Project One: Political Preferences

Overview
In this project, we in our individual groups were each presented with a theoretical
political candidate, with three separate controversial distinctions, and we were to give
out surveys to 50 people, and record the results of two different readings, one where the
controversial quality is present, and another where the quality is absent. We would then
record the results and look for any inherent biases in the people we surveyed, showing
a preference for one type of candidate over another.

My group had the topic of sexual orientation of a political candidate, and the
impact of this slight difference among many other qualifying factors in a randomly
selected persons survey answers about the political qualifications of the theoretical
candidate, Patrick Sorenson, for a U.S. Senator from the state of Utah. The two different
readings for Patrick were virtually the same, except on one he was married, and a
volunteer soccer coach for Salt Lake County, and in the other example, he was life
partnered, and a volunteer organizer for the Salt Lake City Gay Pride Parade. It was
interesting to see the slight differences we would see, negative or positive, on questions
indirectly centered around these differences.

We worked to answer the question of if these discrete differences would actually

cause there to be a difference in opinions of survey takers, and we did so by passing
out one version of the theoretical candidate to 14 people, and the other version to 14
different people, 7 males and 7 females for each different scenario.

Hypothesis
My hypothesis for this project is that I think the small differences between the two
theoretical political candidates will lead to a small difference in recorded answers from
the individuals I and my group surveyed. I think that Utahns have a slight preference for
straight people over gay people, due to various religious backgrounds, and the
normality of traditional families here in Utah, and I think that these factors will lead to
that small difference in opinions.

There is much political importance for the findings of this research. If there is
found to be a difference in opinion for either candidate over the other, this means either
one of two things: either most people would tend to think this way also, and so the vote
of a whole state or area could be determined from a factor such as this, or either this
difference was accidental, a fluke of random surveying, and has no influence on
whether people in our area are more likely to vote for this candidate. This fact, and the
outcome of our surveys is especially important for those running in elections for higher
office, with more media coverage. If we find that factors and tiny differences such as
these lead to a predictable decline in popularity, or less agreement with candidate, then
the media or rival candidates could use this strategically to their advantage. It would
mean that they would and could dig through their rivals or targets life to find small

things such as this, that are controversial enough to possibly lower their popularity or
make them seem less relatable to the public. The reason I think this will be the case
with our studies is because in our country today, this is exactly how our political
campaigning process works. Candidates try to defame and dig up dirt on their rivals
almost as much as they try to talk themselves up. The fact is that this works, and the
media and politicians wouldnt do it if it didnt work, which is why I am sure that these
are the results we will find from our surveys.

Methodology
For my specific surveys, I had a few different approaches towards how I got them
done. I had my parents do some, and then I gave a few two my neighbors. Since all of
these people had generally the same ideas and backgrounds, I decided to go to South
Town Mall, to the food court, and give out the rest of my surveys to random people who
seemed to be of different backgrounds than the ones I already had many samples of.
This method worked well, because I got surveys from many different backgrounds of
people, some with very different viewpoints.

The questions in the survey went as follows, with a answer scale of strongly
agree to strongly disagree: 1. He has sufficient education to be a U.S. Senator from
Utah. 2. He has sufficient work experience to be a U.S. Senator from Utah. 3. He
demonstrates strong leadership skills. 4. He has the kinds of life experiences that will
help him understand average Utahns. 5. I support more of his policy positions than I
oppose. My group didnt choose to add any more questions, because we wanted to
keep the point of the questions more vague, as to not explicitly reveal the point of the

survey. We felt that any extra questions we would have asked would have been too
pointed and blunt to add.

Results
Our groups results showed a little tendency of people to rate the situation where
he is life-partnered and a volunteer for the Gay Pride Parade a little bit lower on the
questions than they rate the situation where he is married and a soccer coach. Out of all
50 of our surveys, I counted up the total number of Strongly Agrees recorded from all of
them. From males, we had 26 strongly agrees for the married candidate, and 22
strongly agrees for the life partnered candidate. From females, we had 25 strongly
agrees for the married candidate, and only 13 for the life partnered candidate. I counted
the same numbers for strongly disagree, and surprisingly found that only one male
strongly disagree with the married candidate, while we had 8 that strongly disagreed
with the life partnered candidate. We had no females vote strongly disagree with either
the married or life partnered candidates. For responses labeled Agree, males voted 60
times for the married candidate, and 59 for the life partnered one. Females voted 65
times for the married candidate, and 71 times for the life partnered one. For responses
labeled Disagree, males voted 15 times for the married candidate, and 12 times for the
life partnered one. Females voted 8 times for the married candidate, and 11 times for
the life partnered one. All these results were very interesting, because males and
females tended to vote very similarly, answering approximately the same amount of
questions for each candidate according to each response, something that I wasnt
expecting. I was expecting to see more positive results for the married candidate to
come from the males, and more positive responses for the life partnered one to come

from the females. In the end, however, the married candidate did get more votes in the
strongly agree category, and less in the strongly disagree and disagree category than
the life partnered candidate. The life partnered candidate had more votes in the agree
category than the married one. I think it is very interesting that we got the balanced,
consistent results that we did. The only way we could have gotten it this way is by
having a large amount and wide spread variety of people surveyed. I think we did
especially well at reaching a large audience, and getting many different points of view
from many different types of people. These results mean that on average, people tend
to agree more with someone who is married over someone who is life partnered, even
when all the information is the same. While this advantage is not large, it is noticeable.

Conclusion
In the end, we did not come away with huge results, leading us to believe that
one type of person is always preferred over the other. Instead we came across many
different people with many different points of view. We learned that while both
candidates were almost as equally popular and unpopular, the candidate who was
married had more positive votes, while the candidate with a life partner had more
negative votes. For future groups doing this research, I would say reach out to a large
and diverse sample of people, dont just survey people around you who all have similar
positions and backgrounds.