Survey conducted by GW students predicts GW alumnus Vincent Gray will be D.C.’s next mayor.
A “supermarket survey” of nearly 700 voters across the District conducted by six GW students makes predictions for the mayoral election and examines the city’s political climate.
The students— Cassandra Moultrie, Uche Nwokike, Corey Barenbrugge, B.A.’09, Shakir Cannon-Moye, B.B.A.’10, Meeshak Cisero and Meghan Smith, B.S.’10— along with Bernard Demczuk, GW faculty advisor to the GW George Washington Williams House, interviewed voters at 27 sites, primarily grocery stores, in the city’s eight wards.
More than 50 percent of the voters surveyed said they would vote for Vincent Gray, B.A.’64, for mayor, while 37.5 percent indicated they would vote for current mayor Adrian Fenty in the Democratic primary. Election Day will be held on Sept. 14.
The survey also predicts that Kwame Brown will be elected city council chairman with 49.8 percent of the vote and the race for at-large councilmember is almost a dead heat between Phil Mendelson or Michael Brown.
A little over 65 percent of the voters surveyed were black and 30.5 percent were white.
The survey, which was funded by the university, was conducted over a 12-day span from Aug. 25 to Sept. 5. In addition to candidate questions, residents were asked about quality of life in the city and issues important to them.
It’s the fifth consecutive “supermarket survey” that Dr. Demczuk has conducted for the D.C. mayoral and city council election.
“These supermarket surveys cost a fraction of the cost of professional pollsters and have predicted empirically accurate results in every mayoral race since 1994,” says Dr. Demczuk. “More importantly, the nearly 700 face-to-face interviews give my students an opportunity to interact with their D.C. neighbors garnering compelling anecdotal evidence of what is on voters’ minds in all eight wards.”
Ms. Smith says the survey was one of the most “interesting and rewarding experiences” she’s had at GW. “I'm not as politically active as some of my peers, so participating in the process fostered a newfound curiosity about what it means to be part of a democracy,” she says.
Ms. Smith says education stood out as being one of the most important issues for residents in the District, with a lot of voters expressing their disapproval of D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. “I was pleased to see so many residents were informed and concerned about the state of D.C. public schools,” she says. “However, given my passion for public health, I was disappointed that few people expressed their concern about the epidemic numbers of people with HIV and AIDS in Washington.”
For graduate student Mr. Cannon-Moye the experience was eye-opening. “Even though I attended school for four years in D.C. prior to administrating the survey, I was completely oblivious to local politics,” he says. “But after traveling to several supermarkets in different wards throughout the city, I am now a lot more knowledgeable about the political atmosphere here. It was interesting to see how passionate so many people are about this upcoming election.”