The Political Pulse of Westmont College, 2012

Dr. Tom Knecht

tknecht@westmont.edu
Summary. The 2012 Presidential Election is just around the corner, which means it is
time to check the political pulse of Westmont College. This report details the findings of
an online survey sent to Westmont students, faculty, and staff in early October 2012.
Here are a few highlights:

Students and staff are largely Republicans (53 and 49 percent respectively),
faculty are likely to be Democrats (42 percent).
Mitt Romney is the candidate of choice for students (53 percent) and staff (48
percent), but faculty plan to vote for Barack Obama (63 percent).
Faculty are the most attentive to the upcoming election (85 percent), followed by
staff (80 percent) and students (66 percent).
In terms of ideology, faculty tend to be liberal; students tend to be conservative;
and staff tend to be moderates.
There are significant differences in the way Westmont students, faculty, and staff
view most political problems.

Methods
An online survey of 49-questions was distributed to Westmont students, faculty, and staff
in early October 2012. The original version of this survey was created by former political
science major (now Westmont Admissions Counselor) Kurt Walker. Many of the
questions in the survey are standard queries found in public opinion research; other
questions, especially those related to Christianity and politics, are of our own design.
Respondents include 321 students, 71 faculty members, and 80 staff. The most important
thing to keep in mind when reading this study is that it is a non-random sample. Nonrandom samples warrant special caution when generalizing from the results to a broader
population. With this caveat in mind, lets examine the results.
Contents
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.

PARTISAN IDENTIFICATION, VOTE, ATTENTION, AND IDEOLOGY

GROUP PERCEPTIONS
POLICY
CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS
POLITICAL DISCUSSION AND ATTITUDINAL CHANGE AT
WESTMONT COLLEGE
CONCLUSION

I.

PARTISAN IDENTIFICATION, VOTE, ATTENTION, AND

IDEOLOGY

There are significant differences in the party identification (PID) of Westmont students,
faculty and staff. While most students and staff identify with the Republican Party (53
and 49 percent respectively), faculty are more likely to be Democrats (42 percent). As a
means of comparison, the American public is divided between Democrats (35 percent),
Republicans (28 percent), and Independents (33 percent).

Votes for president closely follow partisanship. Mitt Romney is the candidate of choice
for students (53 percent) and staff (48 percent), but faculty overwhelmingly plan to vote
for Barack Obama (63 percent).

The Westmont community is paying close attention to the upcoming election. Faculty
are the most attentive (85 percent), followed by staff (80 percent) and students (66
percent).

The chart below shows how Westmont students, faculty, and staff placed themselves
along a seven-point continuum ranging from extremely liberal (1) to extremely
conservative (7). The results show that the faculty tend to be liberal, students tend to be
conservative, and the staff is moderate.

The next two charts ask respondents to place the Democrat and Republican parties on the
same seven-point scale. Despite general agreement that Democrats are liberal and
Republicans are conservative, there are statistically significant differences on where
students, faculty, and staff place the parties. Faculty view the Democratic Party as more
moderate and the Republican Party as more extreme than do students and staff.

II.

GROUP PERCEPTIONS

Having established a baseline of actual partisan identification on campus, we were

interested in how faculty and students perceive PID on campus. Put differently, we were
interested in the extent to which student, faculty, and staff perceptions of PID at
Westmont matched actual distributions of PID on campus. (Unfortunately, we did not ask
questions about perception of staff PID).
Respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of Westmont students and faculty
who identified with a particular party; they were also asked to estimate the distribution of
partisanship for faculty and staff at non-sectarian institutions. For instance, a student
might estimate that out of 100 percent of Westmont faculty, 33% are Democrats; 33% are
Republicans; and 33% are Independents. The following charts report the means of those
estimates.
Three things stand out in these charts. First, in general, the prediction of party
identification of various Westmont groups is fairly accurate. Second, students tend to
overestimate the number of Republicans among the Westmont faculty. Third, the
Westmont community views non-sectarian colleges as a stronghold of the Democratic
Party.

III.

POLICY

The following charts describe how Westmont students, faculty, and staff view some of
the important political issues of the day. Some follow-up questions then ask respondents
to identify where they think the parties stand on these issues. Rather than describing the
results of each chart, we encourage the reader to think about areas of agreement and
disagreement between Westmont students, faculty, and staff.

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IV.

CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS

We were also interested in the relationship between Christianity and politics. We began
by asking respondents which political party more closely followed biblical principles on
eight contemporary political issues. With the exception of gay marriage, there are
significant differences in how Westmont students, faculty, and staff view the political
parties (asterisks by the question indicate statistical significance).
Which party do you feel more closely follows biblical
principles on

War in Afghanistan***
Democrats
Republicans
Not much Difference/Neither
Health Care**
Democrats
Republicans
Not much Difference/Neither
Protecting the environment**
Democrats
Republicans
Not much Difference/Neither
Foreign Aid***
Democrats
Republicans
Not much Difference/Neither
Dealing with Poverty***
Democrats
Republicans
Not much Difference/Neither
Death Penalty**
Democrats
Republicans
Not much Difference/Neither
Abortion*
Democrats
Republicans
Not much Difference/Neither
Gay marriage
Democrats
Republicans
Not much Difference/Neither
p < .05*
p < .01**
p < .001***

Students

Faculty

Staff

14%
31%
55%

11%
9%
81%

8%
10%
82%

48%
24%
29%

70%
8%
22%

50%
19%
31%

51%
13%
36%

71%
5%
24%

56%
5%
39%

21%
34%
46%

40%
4%
56%

28%
12%
60%

49%
24%
27%

72%
12%
16%

56%
6%
38%

29%
38%
33%

32%
22%
46%

22%
24%
57%

1%
88%
11%

4%
68%
29%

5%
86%
9%

13%
75%
12%

26%
53%
21%

11%
64%
25%

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We are also interested in what the Westmont community thinks is the most important
problem (MIP) facing America today. Political Science major Lauren Burson went
through the considerable work of coding each open-ended response into general
categories. Perhaps the most interesting finding is that there appears to be little connect
between what people think is the most important political problem (the economy) and
what they think the Bible calls us to attend to (poverty).
MIP

Economy
Debt/budget/finances

Percent
23.4
15.6
7.8

Political polarization
Decline of
morality/spirituality
Jobs/Unemployment
Foreign Policy
Education
The gap between the rich
and the poor/the
disappearance of the
middle class
Big government

6.8
5.4
4.9
4.4

Human
dignity/equality/rights/liberty
Move toward socialism
Environment
Energy/oil prices
Healthcare
Campaign finance
An incapable government

loving your
neighbor/caring for
those in need
Human dignityequality/rights/liberty
Economy
Foreign Policy
Environment

Percent
18.8
8.4
5.8

5.2
4.5
4.5
4.5

4.5

Healthcare
4.4

2.0

2.0

1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5
1.5

1.5

The American public

Poverty
gay marriage

4.4

2.4

War/Terrorism
Climate Change

Bible MIP

abortion/protection of
life
religious
freedom/separation
of church and state
War/Terrorism
stewardshipespecially being
stewards with our
money
debt/budget/finances
Jobs/Unemployment
Foreign aid
preserving the
sanctity of marriage
justice
peace
The gap between the
rich and the poor/the
disappearance of the
middle class

4.5

4.5
3.9

3.9

3.2
2.6
2.6
2.6
2.6
2.6

1.9

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1.0

Poverty
Government programs cost
too much

1.0

Leadership and specific

candidates

1.0

0.5

Abortion/protection of life
Immigration

Government programs are

being cut

Foreign aid
Gay marriage/rights
Peace
Religious
freedom/separation of
church and state

V.

morality and the

decline in
morality/spirituality
Climate Change
Education
Big government/too
much government
power and
involvement

1.9

1.3
1.3

1.3

0.5

Leadership and
specific candidates

1.3

0.5

polarization/inability
of the two parties to
compromise and
respect one another

0.6

0.5

problems involving
the character of the
general American
public

0.6

0.5
0.5
0.5

POLITICAL DISCUSSION AND ATTITUDINAL CHANGE AT

WESTMONT COLLEGE

Finally, we were interested in political deliberation and attitudinal change on campus.

More specifically, we explore 1) the extent to which students changed their political
opinion since coming to Westmont, 2) how much attitudinal instability, if any, can be
traced back to the faculty, 3) whether students felt it appropriate for professors to express
their political views in class, and 4) how often professors present their own political
views in class.

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Have your political views changed since coming

40

30

20

Percent

10

0
A great deal

Somew hat

Not much

Not at all

Have your political views changed since coming to Westmont Colle

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VI.

CONCLUSION

I hope that you have found this research interesting. I also hope these findings spark
additional dialog on campus about politics in general, and the intersection between
Christianity and politics in particular. Thank you for participating in this study. If you
would like to know more, please feel free to email or call me.
Please vote Tuesday, November 6!
Thank you,
Tom Knecht
Associate Professor of Political Science
Westmont College
tknecht@westmont.edu

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