Results of campus straw poll

At the March 23 candidates’ forum on the UW Oshkosh campus, Oshkosh News asked attendees to participate in a straw poll. We have already published the qualitative results from that poll, and we’ve been asked to publish the quantitative results.

We do so with some hesitation. We have no way of knowing whether the forum attendees were representative of UW Oshkosh voters as a whole, and of course we have no way of knowing whether UW Oshkosh voters are representative of the city as a whole (although we suspect not).

On the other hand, we don’t know of any other effort to gauge citizen sentiment in the current campaign, and so we thought the straw poll results might be interesting to think about and talk about.

We make no argument about their scientific validity or predictive value. (Also note that the percentages don’t sum to 100 due to rounding.)

With those disclaimers, here are the poll questions and responses:

1. If you were voting today, who would be your choice for mayor?

Bill Castle.................55%
Paul Esslinger..........33%
Other.......................11%

2. If you were voting today, which the following candidates would get your vote?

Bryan L. Bain........................... 22%
Cheryl Hentz........................... 6%
Joe Jungwirth........................... 13%
Shirley Brabender Mattox......... 28%
Brian Poeschl........................... 3%
Meredith Scheuermann.................. 30%
Other........................... 3%

3. Of the following city issues, please indicate the three that are most important to you and will most affect how you vote.


Accountability in city government......... 3%
Downtown development.................. 21%
Housing costs/availability.................. 9%
Quality of life.................. 24%
Taxes & fees.................. 9%
Public pool.................. 6%
Revitalizing the riverfront......... 9%
Restaurant smoking ban......... 3%
Street repairs.................. 15%
Structure of city government......... 0%