Barry Richard – Radio and Facebook Polls Show Strong Support For Trump and His Issues

I did a random, unannounced, unscientific  poll on the presidential election on my show today. The results were fascinating and worthy of consideration.

49 of the 55 people who participated in the roughly 90 minute poll voted for Donald Trump, most of them very enthusiastically.  Hillary Clinton scored 5 votes from equally enthusiastic supporters.  Gary Johnson got one vote and Jill Stein received no votes.

Many of the Trump supporters indicated that they were current or former Democrats while others wanted me to know that they are unenrolled.  I don't recall anyone stating that they were Republican.  Also interesting is that at least two participants indicated that it was the first time they had called the station.

On the issues, most Trump supporters cited concerns about corruption as their biggest issue while an almost equal number said it was illegal immigration followed closely by the Supreme Court.  If you break that down what it shows is that the recent WikiLeaks revelations about Clinton and the Democrats in general are having an impact.  While immigration concerns have always been at the heart of the Trump base there appears to be a growing concern, at least among my poll participants, about the future make up of the Supreme Court, a rather new area of concern but a recent topic at the latest debate.

Concerns about the economy, trade and the second amendment were also raised by Trump supporters but were far more distant concerns.  Clinton supporters pointed to Trump himself as the reason for their choice.

A non-scientific poll conducted concurrently on my personal Facebook page netted only 17 responses with Trump scoring 14 votes, Clinton no votes, Johnson 2 votes and one participant who was still undecided. Interestingly enough the issues remained fairly consistent with the on-air poll.  While corruption was not mentioned as a top issue in the Facebook, poll immigration and the Supreme Court were the top concerns.  Taxes, the economy and jobs were also mentioned.

If the results of these local polls, conducted in a Democrat enclave like New Bedford are similar to what folks in other parts of the country are saying November 8th could be a very interesting day.