(CNN) – While the 2012 Republican presidential election is at the center of national media coverage, it appears voters are significantly in the dark when it comes to the GOP race.
According to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, fewer than half of registered voters identified South Carolina as the next primary state on the road to the White House, with slightly more Republicans, at 50%, than Democrats, at 43%, offering the correct answer.
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Sixty-nine percent of voters knew Newt Gingrich served as House speaker, but only about half could say in which state Mitt Romney served as governor. Fifty-three percent of registered voters, 59% of Republicans and 50% of Democrats correctly named Massachusetts.
Despite Rep. Ron Paul's strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, only 44% of voters knew the Texas congressman as the White House hopeful who opposes U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, a cornerstone of his candidacy.
Age, gender and education gaps were also evident in the poll, which indicated Republican and Republican-leaning voters 65 years of age or older were more likely to answer the questions correctly. Twenty-six percent of GOP voters under 40 correctly answered at least three of the four questions, as opposed to 62% of those 65 years or older.
Republican women were less likely to answer the questions correctly, as were non-college graduates. And voters who aligned themselves with the tea party had far more knowledge about the 2012 race than those who said they disagreed or had no opinion of the grassroots movement.
The Pew poll surveyed 1,165 registered voters and 549 Republican and Republican-leaning voters between Jan. 4 and Jan. 8 with a sampling error of 3.5 for registered voters and 5.5 percentage points for GOP voters.
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From CNN Politics
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It seems that the majority of republicans are uninformed, misinformed, and confused. That is the reason they vote the way they do.
This is why our government is such a mess. No one in this country bothers to become informed and they vote based on sound-bite politics rather than substance.
Fewer people pay attention to politics now because US politics became big industry
is that how obama got elected on a promise of change it was supposed to be for the good of the people what a faliure
@Wire Palladin – you do realize that Republicans were more correct on those questions than Democrats, right?
So much for GOP voter enthusiasm. Obama 2012.
"with slightly more Republicans, at 50%, than Democrats, at 43%, offering the correct answer."
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And yet the headline refers to GOP voters being in the dark? Nahhhhhhh... no bias there. Move along. Nothing to see here. Just keep moving along folks...
Mitt Romney still hasn't produced his birth certificate. His father was born in Mexico. Mitt has to prove he's American. Right now, he hasn't proven it which means he doesn't have the right to run for president according to the laws this country has established.
24/7 news and talk radio has done more to HURT the voter views and choices than to help it IMO. Before such existed people did their own research, formed their own opinons and didn't need any media right or left blowhard to tell them how they should view things. We are now bombarded with perhaps TOO much information and some just throw up the towel and say I'll vote the way the polls claim I should.
Facts in the article:
50% of Republicans know the next primary state is SC, 43% of Dems know this.
59% of Republicans know Romney is from Mass., 50% of Dems know this.
Republicans over 65 are the most informed voters.
Tea Party voters were more informed about the 2012 race than non-Tea Party voters.
Please tell me how you get a headline of "GOP voters in the dark" based on the facts outlined in the article?
@TJ – you do realize that there really isn't a Democratic Presidential Primary this year? As a friend of mine says, "If I don't have a horse in this race, I really don't care when it is." That being said, I am more concerned that my Republican Friends are relatively unaware of who the candidates are, what they have done, and what they really stand for. Even though I am not crazy about the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire and their version of retail politics, when the candidates get in front of real people, and have to answer real questions, any inconsistencies will show up like a bull coming out of a rodeo gate. If the people going to the polls have not been paying attention to what these candidates have been saying in the dozen or so debates, and hundreds of personal appearances over the past year, they really should stay home on primary day and let the people who have been really paying attention do the voting. Of course, if everyone had been paying real attention to where the candidates stand, John Huntsman would have won both Iowa and New Hampshire.
So the "so called, conservative America's right, continue to stumble and fall for the party of "No" chance in H#@%$^*&! only to wake up lost, abandon and with a feeling of despair. Romney is bad for Christians . . . Period. Question, How can the evangelicals and the bible folks claim christianity, vote against a fellow christian for a mormon? They would willingly sell their souls to the devil, just to beat President Barack Obama, a proven brethren of the Christian faith. And all the people answered and said, “His blood be upon us and on our children.” (Matthew 27:24–25) And this is why most folks have little respect for the so called conservative right. Hypocrisy!
I would like to know why Ron Paul never gets the media attention. He came in 2nd in NH and you would never know it. That is why South Carolina does not know that he is a hopeful..he never gets mentioned. Candidates that ranked lower than him get more attention than he does. WHY?? What is the media afraid of, I think it is terrible.
Of course they are in the dark. Those that call themselves Christian Conservatives really mean that they are against abortion and gay anything. Never once do they look at what the GOP proposes and ask themselves, "What would Jesus do?" If they did, they could not support any the GOP candidates of today. President Obama would have to get their vote.
@TJ... you do realize all of these questions were about the Republican candidates and the Republican primaries right? Republicans were, I assume, projected to know a good deal more than Democrats about these types of questions and yet knew barely more across the board. And poll after poll after poll shows that Republicans and Fox News viewers are the most uninformed voting block in modern history.
TJ – Wire Palladins statement is correct – Yes, more Republicans were more correct then Democrats but if I'm not mistaken the questions asked where those for Republicans and are about their candidates running. This poll not only is showing Republicans out of touch with the facts but it shows that more Democrats are taking their time and studying each candidate regardless of party affiliation. Which is what every citizen in the US should be doing. Stop the hate statements, study the facts regarding the candidates... we can't take another 4 years of a "do nothing" congress and we can't have a GOP President who wants nothing more then wiping out the Middle Class and contribute more to the top 1% and themselves. Keep this in mind... if you take out those who spend how do you as a wealthy person plan to keep you profit line? Money only last so long, especially when your are living the high life. Basically you have to spend money to make money... so pay your rightfully share of taxes.
@roadwarrior. Obama hasn't failed. Haven't you seen the list? Probably not, I'd guess. You might be part of the percentage they are talking about above, I'd guess. The only reason he hasn't be even more successful is due to the roadblocks set up by the GOP/TeaParty...and the 1% barons.
The fact that the democrats know almost as much about the republican primaries even though the democrats are not trying to inform themselves on the republicans because they will not be voting in the republican primaries should be an embarrasment to republicans.
GOP voters,if you need the real change, vote for Palin in 2012,that's only a dumb people like Palin can turn things around in this country. after that all the others, they are too smart n liars.
Fair is Fair wrote:
And yet the headline refers to GOP voters being in the dark? Nahhhhhhh... no bias there.
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Fact. The numbers indicate that at least half of the Republican voters don't know anything about the people that they are voting for. That means they will be vote with their emotions and are easily swayed by meaningless rhetoric aimed at their insticts, and not their intellect. They will behave like a herd of sheep.
The Democrats could care less about the Republican candidates at this stage, which is exactly what the numbers reflect.
Misleading headline, CNN: please try to be accurate.
Voters r in the dark they only know what the media wants them to know...RON PAUL?? The man who came in 2nd in the NH Primaries..Ya think we can cover him?? Let people have a real choice and give the candidates all a fair chance. Ron Paul is the change that we need and is not one of the same politicians that have ineffectively run this country for years. His downfall is that of the media. Demand that he gets the attention he respectively deserves.
They must be Fox News viewers.
Once again proof, people who get their news from Fox News are the most ill informed. Bumper sticker politics at it's finest.
fair is fair- while I agree CNN headlines are pretty misleading most of the time, in this instance the article is referring to the fact that the news is dominated by the Republican campaign and yet only 50% even know where the next primary is.
I'll bet if they asked what Tebowing is, the percentage would be higher. This is far more important than that grandstander, yet we pay little attention to the news about who may beour next President. The whole point of the article.
""with slightly more Republicans, at 50%, than Democrats, at 43%, offering the correct answer."
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And yet the headline refers to GOP voters being in the dark?"
Duh. It's GOP voters who actually SHOULD know about THEIR primaries. Only political junkies like us would give enough of a crap about the other team's primary to pay attention to its details. One would hope that people might take an interest in understanding the other team, if for no other reason but to "know thy enemy" if that's their mindset, but that's not how people's brains are wired. Waaaaaah more. Crying "bias" at every opportunity misses the forest for the trees.
Just another in a long line of useless polls.
This is like saying that you need to know the birth date of every one of your extended family memebers. It is not important. There is no reason to care in the way the primaries are laid out. A voter has no control over what happens in any other state other than their own. You keep your eyes and ears open to what the candidates say and do and when your turn comes around, you vote your conscience.
We need to educate our citizens. This is part of the problem is that many people don't care and don't vote. We need to have a massive non-partisan effort to get people knowledgable about their government and to vote. Remember, if you don't vote, you can't complain.
Most American voters are in the dark. Many don't even bother to register to vote and less than 50% of registered voters do not cast a ballot on election day. The winning candidate is victorious with around 25% of the electorate, a disgrace. No wonder American voters are susceptible to lies, propoganda, misinformation, and 10 second TV/raido sound bites.
"if we dont run chris christie romney will become the nominee and we will lose"-mr. ann coulter
The problem is, people hate the political process........it is neither democratic, nor fair, nor representative of the wishes of the people. That applies to all political parties, equally.
The hatred of the process, the lack of any real democracy, and the lack of any real personal input, makes most people shy totally away from politics........allowing fakes, and charlatans to run for office, successfully, and making government worse in the end.........because the voters know nothing about the people they vote for. They expect someone else to tell them who to vote for, whether a big labor union, or a friend, or the political party leadership.
Truthfully........so few people know anything about what they do, when it comes to voting, that one has to question whether it does make any sense for everyone to vote.
@TJ – You do realize that the poll questions centered on the republican primaries. Where you expecting Democrats would know better than republicans. I bet if the questions were on a Democrat primary, the results will be reversed.