Poll Shows Illinois Voters Not Currently in Favor of Military Action in Iraq

Oct. 24, 2002

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. —Illinois voters do not favor using American military force against Iraq at this time but still trust President Bush more than Democrats in Congress on foreign policy, according a poll taken by the Survey Research Center of Illinois Wesleyan University’s department of political science.

The poll of registered voters from all regions of Illinois was conducted October 20 through October 22.

Asked whether or not they support calls for military force against Saddam Hussein, 48 percent said that they did not favor such action at this time compared with 40 percent who did favor such action and 12 percent who were undecided.

"We found this a somewhat surprising result," said Tari Renner, professor and chair of the department of political science at Illinois Wesleyan who directed the survey. "Although I might have anticipated that Illinois voters could be a bit more dovish, I’m wondering if this doesn’t signal some movement away from earlier polls that showed more support for immediate action. I know that the students who conducted the poll were surprised by the responses they received and by the lectures that they heard on this subject from those whom they called."

Meanwhile, 49 percent of the respondents to the Illinois Wesleyan survey said that they trusted President Bush to handle foreign policy problems compared with 31 percent who favored the Democrats in Congress. Six percent of the respondents volunteered the fact that they favored neither the President nor the Democrats while 14 percent were undecided.

On economic issues, there was a narrow one-point edge for the President over Congressional Democrats with 41 percent saying that they trusted the President to deal with the main economic issues facing the country compared with 40 percent who put more trust in Congressional Democrats. Eight percent said that they trusted neither the President nor the Democrats in Congress while 11 percent were undecided.

One topic of current interest to Illinois voters is the death penalty. In the past several weeks, the state has held clemency hearings for more than 140 death row inmates. The hearings were set in motion by Gov. George Ryan, who suspended all executive three years ago because of flaws in the system. Asked their views on the death penalty, 43 percent of the respondents to the Illinois Wesleyan survey favored the death penalty over life without parole in cases of individuals convicted of murder. That compared with 35 percent who favored life without parole and 21 percent who were undecided.

Two other issues specific to the state’s voters that were surveyed by the Illinois Wesleyan poll were the reelection in 2004 of U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and the performance of Republic gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan as attorney general in a license-for-bribes scandal.

In the case of Fitzgerald, 33 percent of the respondents indicated that they thought the Republican incumbent should be reelected compared with 34 percent who said someone else should be given a chance and 33 percent who were undecided.

When it came to questions of Jim Ryan’s response to the scandal that dogged the administration of current Gov. George Ryan, 54 percent of the respondents agreed with a statement asserting that Jim Ryan should have done more as attorney general to investigate the scandal. That compared with 23 percent who said that Jim Ryan did all that he could involving the scandal and 24 percent who were undecided or did not know.