New Bipartisan Poll Finds Grateful Dead Popular Across Political Party Lines, All Age Groups

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by Strategic Media, Inc.:

With the Grateful Dead's final "Fare Thee Well" tour celebrating the band's 50^th anniversary now heading from Santa Clara, CA to Chicago's Soldier Field for three final shows next weekend, a new bipartisan national poll conducted by the Mellman Group (D) and Public Opinion Strategies (R) finds the iconic band well liked across political party lines, by all age groups, and viewed most favorably by 100K+ annual earners, and those with college degrees.

The new June 2015 poll of 1009 adults nationwide (landline and cell phone) has a +/- 3.1% margin of error. Out of personal curiosity, Gordon Hensley, a Washington DC-based consultant, long-time fan, and board member of the non-partisan NYC-based voter registration group, Headcount.org, funded the poll.

"The Grateful Dead's 50^th anniversary is the obvious time to objectively evaluate their decades-long impact on U.S. public opinion with accurate bipartisan data, and to assess their standing by political party, age, socio-economic status, and other interesting metrics," said Hensley. "The Grateful Dead and its eclectic fan base is an ongoing source of academic study, and the poll's findings help shed light on just how wide a net the band cast over multiple generations of Americans with highly diverse viewpoints and life experiences."

Several noteworthy data points found in the poll summary and polling crosstabs:

• 79% of Americans have heard of the Grateful Dead, and 39% know enough about them to have an impression; among this 39% (the "hard name ID"), almost three times as many Americans rate the band favorably as opposed to unfavorably (2.9 to 1 ratio)
• The Grateful Dead have the highest hard name ID among Republicans (46%), followed by Democrats (37%) and independents (35%)
• On a Fav/Unfav basis, Republicans give the band a 32/15 (2.13 ratio), Democrats a 31/6 (5.17 ratio) and Independents 26/9 (2.89 ratio)
• Yet, among partisan subgroups, the greatest intensity of favorable feeling for the Grateful Dead is found among independent-leaning Republicans
• The Grateful Dead has the highest hard name ID with 100k+ annual wage earners (55%) and college grads (55%); respectively, these two sub-groups give them a strong 45/10 and 44/11 fav/unfav rating
• While best known by Baby-Boomers, the Grateful Dead, interestingly, is most popular with the youngest Americans: those age 35-44 give the band a 37/8 fav/unfav (4.63 ratio) while those age 18-34 give a 21/5 fav/unfav (4.20 ratio).

Over the years, Hensley observed, the Grateful Dead and its sprawling fan base were more often than not characterized pejoratively in national and local reporting, especially as the scene exploded in the late 80's. "In actuality, many of the band's most passionate long-time fans are the most creative, successful, and productive among us. In addition to being a unique bipartisan inquiry into the American institution known as the Grateful Dead, this new data serves as an instructive counterpoint to various stereotypes surrounding the band and its millions of fans across the nation."

Hensley is submitting the poll findings to the UC Santa Cruz Grateful Dead Archive, the band's official archival repository, and using the data as source material for a 2016 narrative non-fiction book project, "Freedom: Across America with the Republican Party and the Grateful Dead."

SOURCE Strategic Media, Inc.