LUBBOCK, Texas - About three-fourths of voters who thought the governor's race was negative blamed candidates Rick Perry and Tony Sanchez equally, but Sanchez apparently suffered more from the tactic, a survey conducted by Texas Tech students showed.
"I think that's the big highlight of the whole survey," Cherie Maestas, an assistant professor of political science at Tech, said Tuesday. "People's opinion of Sanchez suffered more."
On a scale of one to five with five being the most favorable, Perry's average favorability rating among those blaming him for the negative campaign was 2.53, while Perry's rating among those blaming Sanchez was 4.25.
In contrast, the average rating of Sanchez among those who blamed him for the negative campaign was 1.54. Among those blaming both candidates equally, the average favorability rating for Sanchez was 2.65 while Perry's average rating was 2.94.
The post-election poll also showed that 55 percent of voters who saw many candidate ads thought the campaign was very negative while just 28 percent of those who saw some, few or no ads thought the campaign was very negative.
"It appears that it was the candidates' ads that drove it rather than the media coverage," Maestas said.
The statewide telephone survey of 410 random households included registered and nonregistered voters and was done between Nov. 6-20. The study was conducted by political science students at Tech and was funded by the school and its Department of Political Science. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
Perry beat Sanchez in the Nov. 5 election, earning him the governor's job that he had took up when George W. Bush resigned to become president.
According to the survey, 63 percent of the respondents deemed the campaign as negative while 18 percent of the respondents viewed the campaign in a positive light.
Of those who saw the campaign ads as negative, 72 percent felt both gubernatorial candidates were responsible for the unfavorable themes presented in their campaign ads. The negative ads caused candidates' likeability to decrease significantly for 73 percent of the respondents.
Twenty-four percent of respondents said neither candidate gave them a sense of what they would do while in office.
When it came to the candidates' ability to meet Texans' needs, 42 percent of those surveyed felt that Perry could address those needs while 22 percent felt Sanchez had a better understanding of the concerns of Texas citizens.
In determining which candidate was relevant to citizens' interests, 50 percent felt that both candidates discussed issues that were important to them while 34 percent believed candidates did not directly address their concerns.
A facet of that issue that Maestas said stood out was that among independents 46 percent disagreed that either candidate talked about things that were important to them.
"A lot of independents didn't feel very connected to either gubernatorial candidate," she said.
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