Even as new polls suggest Barack Obama is widening his lead over John McCain amongst likely voters, 53% to 45% supporting Obama according to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation, small business owners surveyed in a MerchantCircle study overwhelmingly support McCain. The survey was conducted from September 25 to October 6 to over 4,300 small business owners in all 50 states. MerchantCircle is the largest online network of local business owners in the nation with 625,000 members.
The surveys were conducted voluntarily from business owners via email. Over 96% of the responders intend to vote in November, although 10% are still unsure which candidate will help small businesses the most.
10 questions were asked, shown below:
Here are some interesting stats from breaking down the results:
- Of those (1602 surveyed) who rated that the current administration has represented the interests of local business as “not well at all”, 75.3% indicate they will vote for Obama, 8.7% McCain, 11% don’t know; and 4.9% other.
- 55% have seen a “Severe” or “Moderate” decline in sales and revenue over the past year; 49.4% of McCain supporters versus 40% for Obama supporters.
- McCain had the largest margin of support from businesses with 21+ employees – 64.7% to Obama’s 27.8%. Businesses that identified themselves as having one employee had the closest margin of difference – 47.9% indicated they would vote for McCain to 42% who would vote for Obama.
For individual state break downs, or special requests for specific data, please email Jennifer Roberts at Support@MerchantCircle.com.
Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations
