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Download a PDF of the study's toplines.

Oct. 2, 2001

Poll Takes Pulse of Triangle Voters

RALEIGH - The first round of local elections will take place one week from today -- on Tuesday, October 9th -- and a new poll of voters in Raleigh, Durham and Cary reveals a series of fascinating similarities and differences between the three largest cities in the Triangle.

For example, growth and environment issues top the list of concerns for residents of both Raleigh and Cary, while voters in Durham are more concerned about education, taxes, and crime. However, a majority of voters in all three cities believe that developers have too much influence and there is strong agreement across the Triangle that developers should pay for a larger share of the costs to provide roads, schools and city services to their developments.

Reducing traffic congestion through building more roads and implementing a regional rail system has emerged as one of the voters’ top priorities, the poll reveals. This is especially true in Raleigh and Cary. When asked, close to 2/3 of voters in all three municipalities agreed that "our community needs a commuter rail system to reduce traffic."

Majorities in Raleigh and Cary also concurred with the use of red-light cameras at intersections, though voters in Durham were more equally divided between proponents and opponents.

The poll also revealed that a majority of voters in all three cities are pleased with the growth in their communities. Perhaps as a consequence, incumbent Mayors in Raleigh and Durham received high marks on favorability scores. Raleigh Mayor Paul Coble received a favorability score of 2.7:1 (favorable impressions: unfavorable impressions). Durham Mayor Nick Tennyson was ranked even higher, at 4.9:1. Both are seeking re-election. Cary Mayor Glen Lang, who is not facing re-election this year, received a more divided review of 1.6:1.

The picture is less clear for city council incumbents seeking re-election. While a plurality of Raleigh voters said they planned to re-elect sitting office holders, a significant portion said they would vote for challengers. The reverse was true in Durham: more voters will vote for challengers than incumbents. Fittingly, in Cary a majority of voters indicated they were undecided on whether to support incumbents or challengers.

Voters all reported satisfaction with the level of coverage of local elections provided by their television stations and newspapers. A majority of voters say they depend on newspapers for the information they use to make decisions about whom to vote for, though ironically many voters had negative impressions of some local newspapers. The vast majority of people view news radio favorably though they are not nearly as likely to collect information from it.

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