Senator Hillary Clinton (D) announced last week that she will reject public funding for her Presidential campaign and rely solely on private donors. Other leading candidates are expected to do the same. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 38% of American voters are more likely to vote for a candidate who rejects public funding and raises money on their own. Just 25% are less likely to vote for such a candidate while 28% say it will have no impact on their vote. Eight percent (8%) are not sure.

The survey contains more bad news for fans of public financing. Just 26% of voters favor public funding of Presidential campaigns while 54% are opposed. When asked if public funding should be provided for all Congressional and Senate elections, just 27% say yes.

Twenty-three percent (23%) believe it should be illegal for citizens to make contributions to political campaigns. Sixty-one percent (61%) disagree.

Voters clearly see campaign finance issues as just one part of a larger picture. A narrow plurality (35%) says that having friendly reporters is more important to winning a political campaign than raising a lot of campaign contributions. Just 30% believe contributions are more important while 30% are not sure.

Perhaps because many perceive that the mainstream media favors Democrats, Republicans are more likely to say that friendly reporters matter more than campaign contributions. Forty-one percent (41%) of the GOP faithful hold this view while 26% say that contributions matter more. Democrats are more evenly divided—30% say that friendly reporters are more important while 34% say it’s the money.

During Election 2004, voters tended to believe that CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN were trying to help Kerry win the election. They also believed Fox News was trying to help Bush win.

Under current law, money to fund campaigns is made available through a voluntary check-off on individual income tax returns. Each person may designate $3 of their tax payment to help provide public funding of campaigns. The number of taxpayers who support public funding in this way has been declining steadily for decades. Now, even though it cost taxpayers nothing extra to provide this funding, only about one-out-of-ten Americans routinely. Michael Toner, a member of the Federal Elections Commission, observed that “When only 11 or 12% of the nation’s taxpayers are contributing …it’s very hard to conclude that the system has public support.”

Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.

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Rasmussen Reports’ Election 2006 coverage has been praised for its accuracy and reliability.  Michael Barone, Senior Writer for U.S. News & World Report and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, mentions, “One clear lesson from the Republican victory of 2004 and the Democratic victory of 2006 is that the best place to look for polls that are spot on is RasmussenReports.com."  And University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato states, “In election campaigns, I’ve learned to look for the Rasmussen results. In my experience, they are right on the money. There is no question Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in the country today.”

Rasmussen Reports was also the nation's most accurate polling firm during the 2004 Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry's vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome.

During both Election 2004 and Election 2006, RasmussenReports.com was the top-ranked public opinion research site on the web. We had twice as many visitors as our nearest competitor and nearly as many as all competitors combined.

Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.