Majority Of Americans Agree Sexual Harassment Must Stop: Poll

Multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against powerful men in the film industry, the news media, politics, sports and business has caused a seismic shift in how Americans view the problem and it could change the complexion of the 2018 midterm elections, according to the director of a new national poll. The USA Today/Suffolk University Poll shows nearly three in four people think sexual impropriety is a major problem that needs serious solutions.

Democrats and Republicans across all demographics were united on the issue, according to the poll, which was released Wednesday. Only one in five respondents said too much has been made of the allegations, the poll said.

Poll director David Paleologos, who runs the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, told Patch the results suggest more women in both major political parties may be elected in the 2018 midterm elections.

“If this issue has legs — if it continues throughout the next year — it has a very good chance of impacting the gender imbalance we see in Congress and in many of the statehouses,” Paleologos said. “The only thing that would abate the movement is if there were repeated allegations that were false or proved to be false, and there’s a possibility there would be a backlash.”

Currently, women hold 19.3 percent of seats in the House of Representatives and 21 percent of the seats in the Senate. In the nation’s 50 statehouses, women held only about a quarter of seats in 2017, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Also See: Biden Takes Aim At Weinstein And Men Of Hollywood: 'Silence Is Complicity'

Paleologos expects female candidates will seize the opportunity to run against the opposing party’s male nominees and, he said, “you may have a lot of races where women are running against women.”

The poll, which found 74 percent of likely voters think sexual misconduct is a big problem that should be addressed in a serious way, showed uniform support across demographics — gender, political party, age, race and ethnicity, marital status and geography.

The Dec. 5-9 poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters and has an error margin of 3 percentage points. It was completed days before Alabama voters’ rejection Tuesday of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, accused by multiple women of sexual impropriety when he was in his 30s and they were in their teens.

The poll results are an ominous warning to candidates with political baggage like Moore, as well as Democrats like Al Franken, the former senator from Minnesota who resigned earlier this month, and Michigan Congressman John Conyers, who plans to retire when his term expires next year. Both Franken and Conyers were also accused of sexual impropriety.

The poll showed nearly three-fourths of those surveyed — 74 percent — said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate facing credible allegations of sexual misconduct, even if they agreed with them politically. They also said they would be less likely to watch a movie or television show if the star had been accused of sexual impropriety.

At the conclusion of polling, most public sentiment was that Moore would defeat Democrat Doug Jones, the once long-shot candidate. “The poll gave me a signal that Moore could lose, and that’s exactly what happened,” Paleologos said.

The poll focused on politics, but the results “stretch beyond politics,” he said. “That’s the immediate quantifier, because there is a finite day of reckoning, which is Election Day.”

Some of the other findings:

• The poll found 59 percent of respondents believe those who have accused prominent men of sexual harassment, while 5 percent believe the men’s denials. Thirty-five percent of respondents said they were undecided.
• More than 84 percent of voters said members of Congress should be barred from using public funds to settle sexual harassment and workplace disputes, and more than 89 percent favor the release of the names of politicians, both those in office or who have served in the past, involved in those settlements.
• And though the poll didn’t discern any differences in opinion between Republicans and Democrats, it did find disparity between men and women. Women are more likely than men to see the current environment as a watershed moment on sexual harassment in America (43 percent to 45 percent), Paleologos said. Men were more likely than women (44 percent to 36 percent) to think attention to the issue will wither as headlines fade.
• Nearly 1 in 4 respondents said they have personally experienced sexual harassment as defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Among women, 33 percent said they had experienced sexual harassment, compared to 14 percent of men.
• When those who had received unwanted sexual advances were asked if they had reported the incident, 29 percent had done so while 69 percent had not. Forty-two percent of those who had reported such incidents said the person named had been held accountable, while 48 percent said this was not the case for them.

Photo: Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Doug Jones and his wife, Louise, wave to supporters before speaking Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Birmingham, Alabama. Jones upset Republican Roy Moore, a one-time GOP pariah who was embraced by the Republican Party and the president even after facing allegations of sexual impropriety. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)