Poll Show Ethiopians in Virginia Can Make an Impact

With the Virginia Gubernatorial election only a week away, voter awareness is a key concern

Written by EA4C Staff

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Last year’s historic election was a watershed moment for Ethiopian-Americans.  Prior to last year’s election, taking part in the political process was a key component that was missing from an otherwise massive Ethiopian populace.  Ethiopians constitute the second largest immigrants from the Africa.  Estimates range from 200,000 Ethiopians who reside in America on the low end to over 500,000 on the high end.

Nowhere is this more evident that the Commonwealth of Virginia.  As with the population count overall, there is no reliable data that can quantify the exact number of Ethiopians who live in Virginia.  However, a number that has been cited by  respected authorities is that there are at least 80,000 Ethiopians who live in Virginia.  A database of registered voters that was gathered by Ethiopians for Obama last year for the 8th Congressional District shows that there is indeed a large bloc of Ethiopian voters in Alexandria alone.

In order to determine the accuracy of the data set, Ethiopian-Americans for Change conducted a poll from October 19th through the 21st.  There were over 600 calls that were made, and once a sufficient number of answers were collected vis-a-vis the overall population of registered voters,  a statistical analysis was conducted.  The results were quite profound.

Male or Female?

What is your age range?

Are you Ethiopian?

How long have you been in the United States?

Are you currently registered to vote?

Do you consider yourself a Democrat, Republican, or an Independent?

Did you vote in the 2008 Presidential Election

Did you vote for Obama last year?

Did you know the Virginia Gubernatorial race is taking place on November 3rd?

Do you plan on voting this year?

Do you plan on voting for Deeds, McDonnell, or neither?

Based on the results of the poll, it is evident that there are quite a lot of Ethiopians who are not aware that the Virginia Gubernatorial election is taking place in just one week.  This is not too surprising since Virginia and New Jersey are the only states that have off-year elections.  Another interesting fact, and one that is striking, is that over 30% of the respondents who voted in last year’s election believe that they are currently not registered.  Of course, the fact is quite to the contrary; whoever voted in last year’s election in Virginia is already registered to vote.

Another outcome that stood out is that 56% of those surveyed consider themselves Democrats, while only 4.4% considered themselves Republicans.  However, in a development that has a potential huge impact on the November 3rd election, the level of support that Creigh Deeds is currently garnering is only 29% ( a tremendous drop-off from the support that Obama received last year) while McDonnell is receiving support from 7.7% of those who responded.  Thus, with the election only a week away, there is a large swath of Ethiopian-Americans who are persuadable yet not sure who is running.  If the election is anywhere close to the 2005 outcome between Deeds and McDonnell, Ethiopian-Americans can indeed cast a decisive vote on November 3rd.

This EA4C poll was conducted by telephone October 19-21, 2009, among a random local sample of 160 from an overall population size of 14,259 Registered Ethiopian voters in the 8th Congressional District in Virginia, including land-line respondents only. The results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 7.7 percentage points. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by EA4C.org | GRAPHIC: EA4C.org