Montanan’s Who Feel Economically Worse Off Likely to Vote Republican, Poll Finds

In the most recent MSU Billings Poll, Dr. Craig Wilson, Dr. Scott Rickard, Mrs. Jennings Pope, along with a host of students attempted to gauge the political opinions of Montanans. The extensive poll covered a host of issues, including the neck-and-neck senate race between Jon Tester and Denny Rehberg.

One of the most interesting questions in the poll, was "Are You Economically Better off than You Were Four Years Ago?"  22% of respondents said they were better off, 33.8% said they were about the same, while 42.7% claimed to be worse off.

Interview with Dr. Craig Wilson:

"It proved to be significant when we asked that," says professor Craig Wilson, "We know that over the last few years the total net worth of the middle class in general has, by family, gone down. You might expect that they would look to the democratic party  to help them because they're more supportive of social programs, but what we're finding in our poll is that large numbers of those that feel worse of economically  than they were four years ago are saying that they're going to vote republican. Verses those who are about the same or better off who are having a greater tendency to vote for democrats.