Post-Trump's Election, No Voter Regret In Ohio

BEREA, OH - A new survey from a local university found that Ohioans do not regret who they voted for in the 2016 presidential election, regardless of party. The survey also dug into other issues, like trust in the media and politicians.

Ohio Republicans overwhelmingly distrust the media as a source of information, saying they trust President Donald Trump more than the news media to tell the truth about important issues, a new statewide poll from Baldwin Wallace University says. Democrats in the state say they overwhelmingly believe the news media to tell the truth over the president.

Including Independents, about one third of Ohioans say they trust the news media, while about one third of Ohioans say they trust the president. About 20 percent of Ohioans say they trust neither group to tell the truth about important issues. Only 8 percent of voters said they trust both the news media and President Trump equally.

The survey also dug into other issues like the president's Tweeting, immigration reform, the border wall, voter regret, and political correctness.

One of the issues that Ohioans appear to agree on is that President Trump needs to scale back on his use of Twitter. Almost 56 percent of respondents said the president's use of Twitter is "inappropriate." More than 63 percent said the president also Tweets too much.

“Presidents have a long tradition of speaking directly to the public through the latest communications technology. What’s new is Trump’s use of social media to launch political attacks,” said Lauren Copeland, a BW political science professor and associate director of CRI, in a statement.

Voter Regret

The vast majority of Ohioans said they felt no regrets about how they voted in November 2016. Ninety-four percent of Ohioans said they would not change how they voted in the presidential election.

That outcome is surprising considering only roughly one third of Buckeye Staters anticipated Trump's victory. That said, of those polled that sat out the election, about 46 percent said they wished they had participated in the election.

“As an independent voter with some second thoughts on having voted Libertarian rather than for Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, I expected more people to express regrets not having voted for the Democratic nominee,” said BW senior Austin Nagy in a statement.

Instead of general voter regret, there appears to be a regret gap. Women in Ohio are 10 percent more reticent than men to reveal who they voted for.

Other Issues

In a non-shocking revelation, party affiliation dictated the way Ohioans felt about immigration. About 80 percent of Trump voters agreed with the statement that "immigrants threaten the safety of Americans." On top of that, 61 percent of Trump voters said they believe the country would be helped by a "stronger barrier along our Southern border."

The state's Republicans also support the president's recent actions on immigration. Nearly 75 percent of Ohio Republicans said they approve of the president's travel ban, and 70 percent support building a wall along the US-Mexican border.

Contrast that with the state's Independents and Democrats. Only 20 percent of Democrats support the travel ban and border wall, and less than half of the Independents support those actions.

The other issue that voters were split on was political correctness and political clarity. About 60 percent of Trump voters felt America needed to get away from career politicians to make government more transparent. Only 34 percent of Clinton voters agreed with that sentiment.

Then 69 percent of people said they felt people were a "little" or "too easily" offended. Only 29 percent felt that people needed to change the way they talked to offend less people.

You can see the full survey results by clicking here.

The study was conducted among 1,019 Ohioans, who said they were registered to vote. The questions were administered between Feb. 24 and March 8 using online panel data with quotas for age, gender, and region. The final data was weighted to reflect the electorate's level of educational attainment.

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