{"id":63571,"date":"2022-02-23T08:07:51","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T14:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=63571"},"modified":"2022-02-23T08:07:53","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T14:07:53","slug":"fhsus-docking-institute-releases-2021-kansas-speaks-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=63571","title":{"rendered":"FHSU\u2019s Docking Institute releases 2021 Kansas Speaks Survey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University today released its annual survey report on the significant issues facing our state and nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Kansas Speaks survey report provides extensive insight into\nhow Kansans perceive the current political, economic, and social conditions in\nour state and the nation. The 2021 Kansas Speaks fall survey was conducted from\nDec. 4-17, 2021. A panel of 523 adult residents of Kansas age 18 and older were\nsurveyed online to assess their attitudes and opinions regarding various issues\nof interest to Kansas citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brett Zollinger, Docking Institute\u2019s director, and report\nco-author, believes the timing of this year\u2019s report may be helpful to voters\nand the state\u2019s political leaders and policymakers. Zollinger said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe are pleased to offer findings on perennial questions in the\nKansas Speaks survey as well as findings on questions about current policy\nissues, including attitudes about Medicaid expansion, which is in the\nlegislative process right now,\u201d Zollinger said, \u201cand about abortion, pertinent\nto a legislatively referred constitutional amendment that will be before Kansas\nvoters this August.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Key findings from the December 2021 survey include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Kansans\u2019 rating of\n     Kansas economy was still relatively low in the fall of 2021, with 21% of\n     respondents feeling the state\u2019s economy was \u201cvery good\u201d or \u201cexcellent\u201d in\n     fall 2020. Also, 66% of respondents felt Kansas was on the right track.<\/li><li>For three\n     consecutive years, Gov. Laura Kelly consistently enjoys the highest\n     satisfaction rating among a list of state and federal officeholders and\n     governing bodies.<\/li><li>Kansans were much\n     more confident with the election security in Kansas elections than with\n     the election security in other states and the 2020 Presidential election.<\/li><li>Among eight\n     considerations for redistricting offered, the largest percentages of\n     respondents felt it very \u201cvery important\u201d or \u201cabsolutely essential\u201d to\n     keep counties, cities, and towns together in the same district rather than\n     breaking them apart into different districts, and to draw as many\n     competitive districts as possible where neither party has a clear election\n     advantage. Of all considerations for redistricting offered, electing as\n     many Democrats or Republicans as possible was deemed the least important\n     by Kansans.<\/li><li>Support for\n     Medicaid expansion increased to 73%, up from about 60% in the previous two\n     years of surveying, and 62% indicated that the issue of Medicaid expansion\n     is \u201chighly important\u201d or \u201cextremely important\u201d in deciding who gets their\n     vote to represent them in the Kansas Legislature.<\/li><li>Kansans became more\n     supportive of legalizing recreational marijuana for individuals 21 and\n     older to allow state taxation, with 71% expressing support in 2021, up\n     from 67% in 2020 and 63% in 2019.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The 2021 Kansas Speaks Survey is available\nonline at <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\nhttps:\/\/www.fhsu.edu\/docking\/Kansas-Speaks\/\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>FHSU\u2019s report authors are Dr. Jian Sun, the Docking Institute\u2019s\nassistant director and professor of political science, and Dr. Brett Zollinger,\ninstitute director and professor of sociology. Docking Institute policy fellows\nwho collaborated on question content for this year\u2019s Kansas Speaks Survey were\nDr. Patrick Miller, associate professor of political science at the University\nof Kansas, and Dr. Michael Smith, professor of political science at Emporia\nState University. Miller contributed items measuring attitudes toward\nredistricting and abortion. Smith contributed items pertaining to COVID-19\nvaccination and reasons for getting vaccinated or not getting vaccinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Docking Institute also thanks the Institute for Policy and\nSocial Research at the University of Kansas for contributing questions about\nbroadband connectivity.\n\nFor more information\non the 2021 Kansas Speaks Survey or the Docking Institute of Public Policy,\ncontact FHSU Chief\nCommunications Officer Scott Cason at 785-628-4208 or&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:sacason@fhsu.edu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>sacason@fhsu.edu<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS The Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University today released its annual survey report on the significant issues facing&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11722],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63572,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63571\/revisions\/63572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}