Editor's note: This story is part of a series based on a survey of Duke community members conducted by The Chronicle from Oct. 16 to 18. You can read more about our methodology and limitations here, or read all of our survey coverage here.
The Chronicle surveyed members of the Duke community about the key issues driving them to the polls this election cycle.
We found that respondents generally care most about abortion, climate change, the economy, gun control and democracy, though priority issues varied with candidate preference and certain demographic characteristics.
We also gauged respondents’ opinions on a range of timely policy issues, including North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban, U.S. aid to Israel and Palestinians, immigration policy, causes of inflation, student debt relief policies and campus expression.
Key issues
Respondents care most about abortion, climate change, the economy, gun control and democracy.
We asked respondents to identify their top five political issues from a list of 16 options. Abortion, climate change, the economy, gun control and democracy were the top five issues across all respondents, while LGBTQ+ issues, crime, race relations, student debt and drug legalization were the bottom five issues.
Female respondents were more likely than male respondents to rank abortion and gun control among their top five issues; female respondents were also somewhat more likely to rank climate change as a top five issue. Male respondents were somewhat more likely than female respondents to rank the economy and democracy and among their top five issues.
Of racial groups with at least 30 respondents, Black or African American respondents were more likely to rank race relations as a priority issue, while Hispanic/Latinx and Middle Eastern/North African respondents were more likely to rank immigration as such. Middle Eastern/North African respondents were more likely to consider the Israel-Hamas war and foreign policy among their top five issues.
Black or African American and Asian respondents were slightly more likely than other racial groups with at least 30 respondents to rank education as a priority issue. Middle Eastern/North African and Asian respondents were somewhat more likely to rank the economy as a priority issue compared to their white, Black or African American or Hispanic/Latinx counterparts.
Faculty and staff members were more likely than students to rank democracy as a priority issue. You can view the full disaggregation by Duke affiliation on Tableau.
Jewish and Muslim respondents were more likely than respondents of other religious groups to select the Israel-Hamas war as a top five issue. Atheist, agnostic and Jewish respondents were slightly more likely to respond that abortion and climate change were priority issues. You can view the full disaggregation by religion here.
Conservatives were more likely to emphasize the economy, foreign policy, immigration and crime, while liberals were more likely to rank abortion, climate change, gun control and democracy as priority issues. Moderates were more likely to rank the economy, foreign policy and democracy as their top issues, and respondents who were “very” conservative or liberal were less likely to emphasize leadership or character.
Respondents’ top priority issues varied with candidate preference.
Respondents were asked to identify their preferred presidential candidate — “even if they aren’t on the ballot” — from a list of nine options, with an additional option of “other.” The nine options offered were Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein, Chase Oliver and Cornel West.
Harris was the preferred presidential candidate for 80.78% of respondents voting for her. The top three preferred candidates — other than Harris — for Harris voters were Haley (4.27%), Stein (3.14%) and Biden (2.14%).
Haley supporters are more likely to prioritize the economy and crime, while placing less emphasis on climate change, gun control and health care. Biden supporters also tend to downplay health care as a priority and focus more on democracy, whereas Stein supporters are most likely to emphasize the Israel-Hamas war. Notably, abortion is a higher priority for Stein and Harris supporters, while the economy is less central to their concerns. These trends may be influenced by the smaller sample sizes of Stein and Biden supporters.
Trump was the preferred presidential candidate for 42.31% of respondents voting for him. Among Trump supporters, the next most preferred choices were Haley (24.36%), DeSantis (14.1%) and Kennedy (7.69%).
Those who prefer Haley are more likely to prioritize democracy and leadership/character, while DeSantis supporters focus more on crime, the economy, foreign policy, and immigration as key issues. Those who support Kennedy are more likely to emphasize health care and less likely to focus on the economy, although this is likely affected by the small sample size of Kennedy voters.
Specific issues
Eight additional questions were posed to respondents who wished to be entered into a raffle for a $100 prize. About 97.55% of total respondents continued to the second half of the survey.
Abortion
The vast majority of respondents (74.3%) believed that current North Carolina law — which stipulates that abortion is illegal after 12 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, life-limiting fetal abnormalities and risk to the life of the mother — ought to allow for later abortions. About 21.29% agree with the law as is, 3.82% believe that the law should be stricter and 0.6% did not provide a response.
Similar to national polls, opinions largely followed political lines, and women were more likely than men to support an N.C. law permitting later abortions. Protestant and Catholic respondents were the least supportive of such a policy out of all religious groups, while Jewish and atheist respondents were the most supportive.
Harris voters were far more likely than Trump voters to believe that the North Carolina abortion law should be more lenient.
Those who answered that they preferred Harris as the presidential candidate were also the most likely to believe that current N.C. law should allow for later abortions, followed by those who preferred Stein, Biden and West. Those who preferred DeSantis were the least likely to support a less strict abortion law, followed by Trump, Haley and Kennedy.
This analysis is likely affected by the small sample of respondents who expressed support for West, Kennedy and DeSantis.
Israel-Hamas war
The majority of respondents (72.09%) believe that the United States is providing too much military aid to Israel. Approximately 21.69% feel the U.S. is providing the right amount of military aid, 5.62% think it is not providing enough and 0.6% did not respond.
Similarly, 72.19% of respondents believe the U.S. is not providing enough humanitarian aid to Palestinians. About 19.58% believe the aid level is sufficient, 7.43% think it is excessive and 0.8% did not respond. Respondents who answered that the U.S. is providing too much military aid to Israel were more likely to answer that it was also not providing enough humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
The results of a November Gallup poll, which asked the same questions to Americans nationwide, differ from how Duke community members responded. A larger proportion of Duke community members said that the U.S. was doing “too much” to provide military aid to Israel. Gallup found that only 31% of Americans thought it was “too much,” 42% thought it was “right amount,” 25% thought it was “not enough” and 3% had “no opinion.”
A much smaller proportion of Duke community members also responded that the U.S. was doing “too much” to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Gallup found that 22% of Americans thought it was “too much,” 34% thought it was the “right amount,” 40% thought it was “not enough” and 5% had “no opinion.”
It is important to note that the Gallup poll was taken almost a year before the elections survey, and national opinions could have changed as the war developed within that time frame.
The distribution of these opinions generally fell along political lines — respondents who were more conservative were more likely to believe that the U.S. was not doing enough to provide military aid to Israel and was doing too much to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians. You can view the full disaggregations for military aid to Israel and humanitarian aid to Palestinians by political affiliation on Tableau.
Respondents voting for Harris are far more likely to believe the U.S. is not doing enough to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians and is doing too much to provide military aid to Israel compared to respondents voting for Trump.
None of the 39 respondents who prefer Stein or the 14 respondents who prefer West believe that the U.S. is doing too much to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians. All respondents in favor of Stein, Oliver and West believe that the U.S. is doing too much to provide military aid to Israel. Compared to respondents who prefer Trump, those who prefer Haley and DeSantis are more likely to believe that the U.S. is providing too much aid to Israel. Haley supporters are also more likely than Trump supporters to believe that the U.S. is not providing enough aid to Palestinians.
This analysis is likely affected by the small sample of respondents who expressed support for West, Kennedy and DeSantis.
About 85.71% of the 21 respondents who identified as Muslims believed that the U.S. was not doing enough to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians and that the U.S. was doing too much to provide military aid for Israel. This may be affected by the small sample size of Muslim respondents.
Jewish respondents were the least likely to believe that the U.S. was doing “too much” to provide military aid for Israel. About 34.52% of our 84 Jewish respondents believed that the U.S. was doing too much to provide military aid to Israel, 46.43% believed that it was doing the “right amount” and 19.05% believed it was doing “not enough.” Roughly 48.81% of the Jewish respondents reported that the U.S. was doing “not enough” to provide humanitarian aid for Palestinians, 42.86% answered that it was doing the “right amount” and 8.33% believed that it was doing “too much.”
Immigration policy
Two questions were posed to respondents regarding undocumented immigrants: whether they would support a policy allowing those living in the U.S. illegally the chance to become U.S. citizens if they meet certain requirements, and whether they would support a policy deporting all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally back to their home country.
A majority of respondents (50.51%) “strongly” supported providing a pathway to citizenship for immigrants currently living illegally in the U.S.
Harris voters were overwhelmingly in favor of this proposal, with 55.85% expressing strong support and 33.68% expressing slight support. Meanwhile, Trump voters were much less likely to support citizenship for undocumented immigrants, with over half slightly or strongly opposing.
When disaggregated by race, an overwhelming majority — 71.26% — of Hispanic/Latinx respondents strongly supported a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Asian respondents were the least likely to strongly support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, at 36.46%.
Political identification was a strong determinant on this question — the more liberal a respondent, the more likely they were to support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and vice versa. Additionally, 88.92% of women expressed “strong” or “slight” support for such a policy, compared to 71.89% of men.
The vast majority — 72.69% — of Harris voters strongly opposed a measure to deport all undocumented immigrants, while Trump voters were more mixed on the policy but generally supported it. Meanwhile, out of racial groups with over 30 respondents, Hispanic/Latinx respondents were the most opposed to such a policy, at 94.25%, and Middle Eastern/North African respondents were the least opposed, at 75%.
You can view the disaggregation of respondents’ stances on a deportation policy by political affiliation on Tableau.
Causes of inflation
We asked respondents to identify the top three factors they believed were most responsible for inflation from a list of 11 possible factors. The phrasing of this question may have inadvertently introduced ambiguity, potentially influencing the reliability and validity of the data. The intent of the question was to address the spike in inflation that began in 2020, though respondents might have seen it as a question gauging what they believed caused inflation in general.
The three factors most commonly selected by respondents were large corporations seeking maximum profits (20.76%), spending by the federal government (15.77%) and the COVID-19 pandemic (14.43%). The supply chain came in a close fourth place, at 12.01%. The three factors chosen the least blamed inflation on Republicans (1.99%), Democrats (1.53%) and wage demands by large unions (1.4%).
When disaggregated by political identification, respondents that identified as more conservative were more likely to select spending by the federal government as one of their three factors — 34.62% of respondents who identified as very conservative chose this option. As respondents identified as more liberal, they generally were more likely to choose large corporations seeking maximum profits as one of their factors — 31.62% of those who identified as very liberal chose this option.
Respondents who were registered as Democrats were also more likely to select the COVID-19 pandemic and large corporations seeking maximum profits than registered Republicans, who were more likely to select spending by the federal government.
Student debt relief
We asked respondents how they felt about government policies that provide student debt relief. They could either respond strongly support, somewhat support, neither support nor oppose, somewhat oppose, strongly oppose or not sure/no opinion. Those who did not answer the question were grouped into the not sure/no opinion category.
A majority of respondents said they either strongly supported (42.8%) or somewhat supported (25.76%) government policies to provide student debt relief. About 9.4% said they neither supported nor opposed such policies, 7.84% said they somewhat opposed them and 5.68% said they strongly opposed them. Roughly 8.52% were not sure or had no opinion.
Respondents who intended to vote for Trump in the 2024 presidential election were much more likely to either strongly oppose (43.59%) or somewhat oppose (23.08%) government policies that provide student debt relief, while 47.18% of respondents that intended to vote for Kamala Harris said they strong supported such policies, and 28.36% said they somewhat supported such policies.
You can view additional disaggregations of respondents’ opinions on student debt relief policies by race, gender, political identification, preferred candidate and political party on Tableau.
Campus expression
We asked respondents whether they thought it was very easy, somewhat easy, neither easy nor difficult, somewhat difficult or very difficult to express their opinions freely on campus.
The majority of respondents answered either somewhat easy (43.98%) or very easy (17.57%). About 18.07% of respondents said it was neither easy nor difficult, 15.36% said it was somewhat difficult and 5.02% said it was very difficult.
Male respondents were more likely to either say it was somewhat difficult or very difficult (29.38%) than female respondents (13.74%).
Roughly 73.59% of respondents who intended to vote for Trump said it was very difficult or somewhat difficult to express their opinions freely on campus. Only 13.39% of respondents who intended to vote for Kamala Harris said the same.
Generally, as respondents identified as more liberal, they were more likely to say it was somewhat easy or very easy to express their opinions freely on campus.
You can view additional disaggregations of respondents’ views on campus expression by race, preferred candidate and political party on Tableau.
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Jazper Lu is a Trinity senior and centennial/elections editor for The Chronicle's 120th volume. He was previously managing editor for Volume 119.
Audrey Wang is a Trinity senior and data editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 119.