Mountaineers are always free — and West Virginians aren’t inclined to trust government or other institutions.
The latest edition of the MetroNews West Virginia Poll asked about confidence in public institutions. The question presented a list of institutions in American society and asked respondents to indicate how much confidence they have in each one.
The institution reflecting confidence by most respondents is the military. Sixty-six percent of respondents described themselves as confident in the military, 22% described themselves as not confident and 12% said they are not sure.
After that, the level of confidence dropped off quickly to half of respondents or fewer.
The police drew a vote of confidence from 50% of respondents — with 35% saying they are not confident in police. Fifteen percent said they are not sure.
The church and organized religion drew a split: 42% of respondents said they are confident and 41% said they are not. Seventeen percent were not sure.
Each institution after that was under water.
“I think it’s just an overall lack of trust in the political class,” said pollster Rex Repass, the president of Research America, which conducts the West Virginia Poll.
“There’s so much talk about the political class today and lack of trust and scandals that take place. It’s just driven down confidence in many of our institutions.”
The erosion of trust extended into a range of institutions.
- Public schools: 45% not confident; 40% confident.
- The U.S. Election system: 48% not confident; 33% confident.
- The U.S. Supreme Court: 48% not confident; 32% confident.
- The U.S. Justice system: 51% not confident; 31% confident.
- The state Legislature: 52% not confident; 28% confident.
- The presidency: 58% not confident; 27% confident.
- The news media: 60% not confident; 25% confident.
- Large technology companies: 49% not confident; 25% confident. A fairly large percentage, 26%, said they are not sure.
- Congress: 61% not confident; 22% confident.
The MetroNews West Virginia Poll included 402 interviews with registered voters across all 55 counties from Aug. 16-26. The confidence level is +/- 4.9 percentage points.
“One that I found very interesting was confidence in the U.S. election system,” Repass said. “You see only 33% of West Virginians have a high confidence or quite a lot of confidence in the U.S. election system.”
Deeper data in the poll, Repass said, shows a big gap on that question between Democrats and Republicans and between liberals, moderates and conservatives.
“Democrats have a much higher level of confidence than Republicans, people who approve of Biden’s job performance have a much higher confidence level in the U.S. election system. If you look at liberals, moderates and conservatives — 51% of liberals have confidence in our elections system. If you look at people who have a graduate degree or professional degree, much higher confidence,” Repass said.
“Then you look at Republicans and you look under lower education categories, that’s where you really see a huge drop-off in confidence in our elections system — and, essentially, what we’ve been hearing about, regardless of your political persuasion, on confidence and lack thereof in our elections system. This had a huge impact on a large segment of the population and their confidence in our election system.”
