Published: April 12, 2022
By: Piper Hutchinson| LSU Manship School News Service
For the first time since 2016, a majority of Louisiana residents believe the state is heading in the wrong direction.
A survey released by the Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs, part of LSU’s Manship School of Mass Communication, showed that two-thirds of Louisiana residents now believe the state is taking a turn for the worse.
Only 26% of those surveyed said they believed the state is going in the right direction. That is the lowest percentage since the Manship School began doing the annual survey in 2004.
The pessimism is widespread across political and demographic backgrounds. Seventy-one percent of Republicans report that they feel the state is headed in the wrong direction and 54% of Democrats agree. The numbers are closer among racial identities, with 68% of white and 61% of Black respondents having a pessimistic view. Regionally, 69% of South Louisiana residents and 64% of those living in North Louisiana having a negative view.
The Louisiana Survey results are based on responses from 508 adult Louisiana residents contacted initially on landline and cellular telephones. Within the sample, 395 were interviewed live and another 113 elected to complete the questionnaire online. The interviews were conducted from Feb. 21 to March 14.
The poll has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 5.8 percentage points, and the margin of error is larger for subsets.
Louisiana residents’ faith in their government fell to the lowest point since the survey began measuring it.
Only 25% of residents say they are either very confident or somewhat confident in the state government to address important problems effectively. This dropped from 41% in 2021 and is several points lower than its previous record low of 33% in 2006.
Read more at The Advocate
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 