Western Conservative Summit Attracts Seven of the New NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll’s Candidates

Congratulations to John Andrews and the Western Conservative Summit for attracting nearly half of the Republican presidential field – the largest field in memory. Each year, the event has grown and become more important in the conservative firmament of major ideological conferences. Now, it is a presidential-level event in a year with a wide open race.

Colorado may be a battleground state in the general election, but the state is often ignored in the nomination battle. The state’s caucuses are typically a non-event, with low turnout, esoteric rules and held the same day as many other nominating events.

But in 2015, Colorado will host a CNBC debate on economics in October, which will bring at least ten candidates who have survived the first two debates and are in the top tier of the polls. And now in early summer, Colorado has a Republican presidential forum with half the field. The presidential debate raised DU’s profile. The host institutions – the Centennial Institute and Colorado Christian University – have raised theirs.

See:
NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, June 2015
Western Conservative Summit info
The Gazette: Western Conservative Summit bringing GOP presidential hopefuls to Colorado

Bernie Sanders Draws Crowd to DU

With a full throat attack on billionaires and Wall Street, Bernie Sanders brought his longshot/no-shot presidential campaign to Colorado.

Although Colorado’s Democratic activists tend toward the far left and preferred Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in 2008, the 5,000 activists who showed up at DU to listen and cheer Sanders will likely not carry the state caucus or be part of the winners in Philadelphia in July 2016.

But clearly the party is divided as severely as the Republicans between ideological wings who want hot rhetoric and controversial solutions, which for the Democrats tend to be expensive and require much more government.

A couple of recent surveys summarize the Democrats’ dilemma with Sanders.

• Gallup reports Democrats have indeed shifted to the left. Forty-seven percent now identify as socially liberal and economically moderate or liberal, up 8 points since the 2008 election and up 17 points since 2001 when Hillary Clinton’s husband left office. Interestingly, Democrats are more liberal on social issue, such as gay marriage, than economic issues, which may explain Sanders’ hot rhetoric and rather pedestrian solutions, such as more infrastructure expenditures and higher minimum wage.
• A second Gallup poll shows that the label voters are most adverse to support is “socialist” – the label Sanders prefers. Half of voters would not support a socialist.

See: Denver Post: Bernie Sanders delivers condemnation of business, billionaires in Denver

Fracking Ban Politics Runs Out of Gas

The activists hoping the fracking bans were the next issue that could attract the money, media and voters for a new anti-growth political movement in Colorado have run out of gas.

In a June 12th cover story, Valerie Richardson in The Colorado Statesman ran down the reasons the anti-fracking movement has lost the headlines and likely momentum for a 2016 ballot initiative.

Some of the reasons I cited in the article are:

Denver political analyst Floyd Ciruli points out that it’s still quite early in the 2016 election cycle, but he agreed that the anti-fracking movement has lost momentum.

“I approached this year with the thought that activists would continue to promote (a statewide initiative), but indeed, the public anxiety and interest in it has receded,” Ciruli said.

He cited a number of reasons, including the governor’s Oil and Gas Task Force, whose recommendations are being implemented, as well as the industry’s ongoing advertising and education effort, led by Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development.

“The industry has been relentless in their continuing to advertise,” Ciruli said. “There are still lots of TV ads and other media proclaiming the benefits of fracking and the lack of a negative environmental impact, and I think that probably has a tendency to undermine the issue getting some traction.”

Then there’s the decline in global oil prices. The U.S. industry has cut back on drilling operations as Saudi Arabia refuses to curtail production, which has cause the price-per-barrel to plummet.

“Even if it doesn’t affect current production, it changes the atmosphere,” Ciruli said. “It’s no longer an ever-expanding industry — it’s now one with at least some level of contraction. Even in these small towns, there’s been some impact on the economy. It just sort of reminds everyone that for all the inconvenience, there is an economic upside.”

“[T]he 2016 election is a lot like 2014 in terms of the Democratic Party leadership,” Ciruli said. “There still is tremendous reluctance to have anything approaching a fracking ban on the ballot, simply because it divides the party so much, which is one reason the governor worked so hard to find a compromise.”

“The actual passion about the issue has dissipated,” Ciruli said. “While there may be more liberal-leaning voters in the electorate, they may be more interested in other issues.”

Read her entire article here.

Ambassador Mamet Welcomes Crossley Center to Argentina

U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, Noah Mamet, welcomed Floyd and KK Ciruli to the beautiful ambassador residence, the Bosch Palace.

Ciruli, representing the Crossley Center, was in Argentina to join polling colleagues from around the world for a WAPOR conference.  The World Association of Public Opinion Research meets yearly for presentations, panels and papers on major topics in public opinion.

Ciruli presented a paper on the historical, political and public opinion context concerning the U.S. change in policy toward Cuba. Ambassador Mamet pointed out the positive effect the policy changes have had for Latin American diplomats.

The Crossley Center is a part of the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies. Ciruli also participated in a panel with international public opinion experts in “Polls, Media and Elections,” organized by Kathy Frankovic, former polling director/CBS News.

Ambassador Mamet is a California resident and a UCLA graduate.

(L to R) Ambassador Mamet, KK Ciruli and
 Floyd Ciruli at Bosch Palace

The Revolt Hits Mexico

In Mexico’s recent state and local elections independent and protest candidates won a governorship and numerous municipal races. The three old-line parties are beginning to lose their pull on votes after 27 years of free (i.e., post-PRI dominated) elections.

In the state of Nuevo León, with its rich business capital Monterrey, Jamie Rodríguez became the first governor independent of the three dominate parties. Independents won the mayorship in Cuernavaca and Guadalajara. Also, although he didn’t win office Lopez Obrador, the wild leftist former mayor of Mexico City, is back with a party winning congressional seats in the city.

Nearly 40 percent of Mexican votes went to third parties, some merely gathering around a single charismatic candidate, such as Morena created by Lopez Obrador.

Mexico has well-established polling professionals. Final polls from major polling outlets were accurate, except for some polls overestimating the PRD’s vote, no doubt due to its accelerated late losses to Morena and other parties.

Although the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) lost seats in this election, President Peña Nieto holds a congressional majority, joining parties on the left, such as the Green, and some other small parties.

President Salinas was the last president elected under the old corrupt system that made presidential elections a one-party event for more than 70 years.

Liberals and Conservatives on Social and Economic Issues

The Millennials are Coming

The headlines from a spate of new polls tell the story of American public opinion moving to the left on social issues. As millions of Millennials become 18 years old and older (old enough to be questioned in most national polls and, of course, to vote), they are a major influence in shifting public opinion (see: 2015: More Millennials than Baby Boomers).

When asked how they view themselves on “social issues” during the last decade, the U.S. public has shifted in the liberal direction, with liberal and conservative views now tied at 31 percent each. A shift of 13 points to the left. Republicans haven’t changed much during the decade. Liberal Republican views only make up 11 percent of the party’s identity on social issues (up 3 points in 10 years). It is Democrats that have shifted dramatically to the left (53% of party labels itself “liberal,” up 15 points), reflecting both changed views and Millennials, who are more liberal, joining the ranks of Democrats.

Although conservative views on economic issues have declined from highs in the upper 40s during the early Obama years (2009 – 48%; 2011 – 47%), down to 39 percent today, conservative views are still two-to-one over liberal economic views of 19 percent.

Republican views on economic issues during the Obama era swung to the conservative direction by 14 points from 2008 (61%) to 2009 (75%). They have since settled in at 64 percent compared to only 7 percent of Republicans with liberal views.

A third of the Democratic Party now claim to be liberal on economic issues, much more than the electorate, and moderate and conservative Democratic views have fallen off.

The second poll showing a surge of support for same-sex marriage confirms the country’s shift to the left on at least some social issues. Sixty percent of Americans now support same-sex marriage and 37 percent oppose.

Republicans and Democrats are dramatically different on their support for same-sex marriage.

Although in the last five years support has increased among all three parties, there is still a 39 percent difference between Democrats and Republicans, larger than in 2010 (28%).


Gallup: On social ideology, the left catches up to the right, May 22, 2015
Gallup: Record-high 60% of Americans support same-sex marriage, May 19, 2015

Colorado is Unchurched

Although Colorado tends to be in the middle of many national rankings, Gallup’s latest ranking of religious attendance shows Colorado is in the lowest 20 percent, ranked eighth with a variety of New England and a few Western Pacific states. Only 25 percent of the adult population claims to attend religious services weekly and 55 percent stating they never or seldom attend. The national medium attendance was 32 percent weekly, 21 percent nearly weekly or monthly and 45 percent seldom or never.

The top ten religious attending states are all part of the South and Utah. These are states where weekly attendance exceeds declared combined “seldom” or “non-attendance”: Utah, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma.