New survey out from the Wall Street Journal / NBC / MySpace. Full report. The WSJ’s read on this was that new voters were less likely than the poll of all voters to vote this November (“very interested” = 49% vs. 70%). However, what I find interesting is that this question is on a 10-pt scale, and that the 10,9,8 votes 78% for new voters vs. 87% for all voters. I wonder if new voters are simply less willing to pick the most extreme possibility.
Other interesting data:
- 28% of new/lapsed voters have watched a homemade video about the election on YouTube, vs. 22% of all voters.
- 25% have sent a text message, vs. 16%
- 21% have joined an online social networking group for either campaign, vs. 8%
- The spread of confidence across internet media, MSM, fed gv’t and financial industry are interesting as well. New voters have little confidence in any of these, but have the most (least least?) confidence in Internet media.
- Despite this, they claim to get and trust the news from cable news channel above MSM and print/online newspapers. Despite stereotypes they don’t rank late night shows, social networking, or blogs very highly. (However, I tend to distrust self-reporting on whom the respondents “trust.” Peer influence, e.g. through social networks and blogs, would be very hard for someone to recognize on themselves.)
- Despite a stereotype that young people don’t join (and these are mostly young voters, though there’s no cross-tab), 23% identify themselves as “strong Democrat,” the largest percentage of any of the other options (19% identify as “strictly independent”).
- 65% of respondents use Internet network (MS, FB, etc.), and 35% have a cell phone but no landline.
