Posted: Tuesday, February 4, 2003 12:00 am
LARAMIE (AP) - Trust in the federal government has increased substantially over the last two years among Wyoming residents, according to a University of Wyoming survey.
In a random survey of Wyoming households, 34 percent of those polled said they trusted the federal government to do what is right "just about always" or "most of the time."
This is nearly double the figure produced in a similar survey conducted during the 2000 election, when only 18 percent expressed the same level of trust in the national government.
The latest survey was conducted last October, but results were not released until last month.
The increase can be attributed to high ratings of George W. Bush's performance as president, according to UW Political Science Professor Jim King.
"Trust in government rises and falls with perceptions of high-level elected officials, especially the president," King said. "Our confidence in the individual translates into confidence in the government as a whole."
The last time polls showed people of Wyoming having such trust in the national government was during the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president.
In 1990, only 20 percent of Wyoming residents believed the federal government could be trusted to do right always or most of the time. The percentage was consistently lower throughout the next decade, reaching a low of 11 percent in 1994. These figures reflected lower ratings of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as presidents, King says.
The October poll showed 70 percent of Wyoming residents polled rated President Bush's job performance as "excellent" or "good." The high presidential job ratings - the highest ever in the biennial UW poll - are attributable to approval of Bush's handling of the economy and support for military action against Iraq, King says.
The UW telephone survey contacted about 600 randomly-selected households in the state. It has been conducted in the autumn of each election year since 1972.
The UW Department of Political Science sponsored the survey, and the UW Survey Research Center conducted the interviews. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.