The results of the 2021 Morningside Poll were released on March 30, 2021.

Sioux City, Iowa – The student fellows of the Colonel Bud Day Center for Civic Engagement at Morningside College have released the results of the annual Morningside Poll, a student-led public opinion initiative that measures the thoughts and attitudes of Iowa residents on current policy issues, political events, and performance of elected officials.

The 2021 survey included questions that stemmed from current events and topics that are being discussed at the state and national levels including COVID-19, social media censorship, the Black Lives Matter movement, and more. The Morningside Poll was designed to identify and analyze trends in the current political climate and gauge where Iowans stand on these issues.

“The Morningside Poll is an opportunity for students to get involved in learning how to design and administer a statewide survey that gathers Iowan’s thoughts on a wide variety of current issues and events,” said Dr. Valerie Hennings, director of the Col. Bud Day Center for Civic Engagement and associate professor of political science at Morningside. “The mission of the Day Center is to initiate nonpartisan efforts to encourage civic engagement and interest in the political process.”

The student fellows created the survey questions and worked with Dynata, the world’s largest first-party data and insights platform, to conduct the polling from March 8 through March 22, 2021. The survey was conducted with computer-assisted telephone interviews to landline and cell phones with 690 Iowa adults as a final sample to be representative of the state’s population. The margin of error for the results is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Day Center student fellows, supervised by Hennings, analyzed the survey data from Dynata and produced factsheets and survey briefs that can be found at morningside.edu/morningside-poll.

The Col. Bud Day Center for Civic Engagement was founded in 2015, and the Morningside Poll was established in 2018. The mission of the Day Center is to provide educational resources and experiences to engage citizens in civic and political processes. The center is named in honor of the late Col. George “Bud” Day, a 1950 Morningside graduate and one of America’s most highly decorated servicemen. The annual results produced from the Morningside Poll can serve as a resource and an asset to anyone interested in Iowa politics and policies, including educators, students, community leaders, and researchers.

Detailed results for the 2021 Morningside Poll and information from previous polls can be found at morningside.edu/morningside-poll.