Poll: Voters say family members more likely than national media to influence them

Voters say that family members have a bigger influence than the national media on the decisions they make at the ballot box, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released on Tuesday.

The survey showed that 32 percent of Americans said that their family has an impact on the way they cast their vote, compared to 26 percent who cited the media as a driving influence.

Republicans tended to be slightly more likely to cite a family member as an influence on their voting decisions.

Thirty-seven percent of GOP respondents said that family members played a role in deciding who they vote for, as did 32 percent of Democratic respondents and 28 percent of independents.

The results come after Monday night’s disastrous caucus in Iowa, which failed to name a winner amid a lengthy delay of the results.

The Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) blamed the delay on reporting issues and technical difficulties with a new mobile app that was being used to transmit the final tallies.

IDP communications director Mandy McClure said Tuesday afternoon that a “majority” of the caucus results will be released at 5 p.m. Eastern.

The state party has come under intense scrutiny to produce the results of Monday’s caucus. The presidential campaigns, volunteers, voters and the news media have all voiced frustration at the delay, pointing to lack of transparency over what went wrong.

Some Iowa political experts are now worried that the bungling of the caucus could threaten their state’s first-in-the-nation status. 

“It’s hard to see how Iowa keeps this after last night,” David Yepsen, a longtime Iowa political observer who hosts a Sunday public affairs show, said Tuesday.

The Hill-HarrisX survey was conducted among 1,001 registered voters between Jan. 30 and 31. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

—Tess Bonn