Vermont Governor Jim Douglas and Congressman Bernie Sanders remain comfortably in control of their respective gubernatorial and senate races. (see prior poll). The most recent Rasmussen Reports election survey of 500 likely voters shows Douglas (R) leading Democrat Scudder Parker 55% to 37%. (see crosstabs).

Not only is Gov. Douglas a popular incumbent with his GOP base, garnering 92% of their support, 31% of Democrats surveyed say they’ll support his bid for re-election.

On the Senate side, regardless of which Republican challenger prevails on September 12th’s primary, Sanders (I) shouldn’t need to worry. He leads Greg Parke 70% to 23% and Richard Tarrant 62% to 34%.

Sanders is immensely popular statewide; 52% say they have a very favorable opinion of the Senate-hopeful. Only 16% of those surveyed could say the same of Tarrant and a mere handful (4%) for Parke.

Views of Sanders offer quite a contrast to opinions of President Bush. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of respondents strongly disapprove of the president’s job performance versus just 15% who strongly approve.

When asked to identify the issue of most importance to them, the economy ranks first (31%) followed closely by the war in Iraq (25%). National security (13%) completes the top three slots.

The survey also shows Vermont’s voters nearly evenly split on two issues in the news this cycle. When asked to choose the language in which election ballots should be printed, 49% say English only and 47% say bilingual ballots (English and Spanish) are ok. On the issue of marriage, 44% believe the institution is the union of a man and a woman only; 49% say marriage is the joining of any two people.

On these issues, Vermont voters are far from the national average. Nationally, two-thirds of Americans believe that marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman. A similar majority (68%) believe that election ballots should be printed in English only. In fact, Vermont voters are further from the national average than voters in any other state we’ve surveyed.

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