poll – The B Square

Bar chart of poll question: Q10 When thinking about your own opportunity to have a meaningful impact on local policy choices in Bloomington, would you say you currently have a lot of opportunities, some opportunities, not many opportunities, or hardly any opportunities? Responses respectively: 7, 38, 26, 17, 12 precent

Bar chart showing John Hamilton approval rating: 27 percent approve compared to 39 percent disapprove.

Bar chart of poll question: Q9 When thinking about the Mayor of Bloomington’s accessibility, how important do you think it is for the Mayor to hold a monthly public news conference, where both members of the public and journalists can ask questions on any topic: very important, somewhat important, not that important, or not important at all? Results respectively: 57, 3, 3, 1, 4 percent.

Should the mayor of Bloomington hold a monthly news conference, where any resident or member of the press can ask a question on any topic?

Incumbent mayor John Hamilton does not appear to think it’s very important to make himself available like that.

No such news conference has been held in the last three and a half years, which is the time The B Square has been in publication.

Hamilton is not seeking reelection. But I hope the next mayor of Bloomington thinks it’s important to hold a regular public event where anyone can ask a question.

Most Bloomington voters seem to think so, too. Continue reading “Column: Bloomington’s next mayor should routinely field questions in public from residents, press” →

With just a month to go before early voting starts for the May 2 Democratic Party primary, a poll conducted from Wednesday through Friday of this week shows that any of the three candidates could easily wind up being the Democratic Party’s nominee.

No Republican candidate is running for mayor.

Among the survey respondents who chose one of the three candidates, here’s how they sorted out: Kerry Thomson (18 percent); Sandberg (15 percent); and Griffin (9 percent).

The margin of error of the poll was +/- 4 percent.

But well over half (58 percent) of those who completed the survey said they’re still not sure who they’ll vote for.

The large percentage of undecided voters, together with the small pointwise differences between candidates, indicates that, right now at least, any of the three candidates could prevail in the Democratic Party’s primary election.

The poll results summarize the completed survey responses from 594 people, who were drawn from a list of registered voters in the city of Bloomington, and who indicated that they plan to vote in the Democratic Party’s primary election. The poll used a text-to-web methodology

The poll was conducted for The B Square by Public Policy Polling, a company based in North Carolina. Continue reading “Poll: Wide-open race for Bloomington mayor with a month to go until early voting starts” →