Battered Warren Mayor Jim Fouts’ popularity has nosedived since he was caught on tape making rancid remarks about seniors and minority groups, putting him 36 points below his standing when he won a re-election landslide two years ago.
A new poll by DiSano Strategies found that, when placed in a matchup against an unnamed opponent, only 49% of voters say Fouts deserves another 4-year term in office .
“If Fouts can’t win an outright majority against an unnamed opponent, he is in trouble when a real challenger emerges. And I expect that one will after seeing these numbers,” said Joe DiSano, owner of the Lansing-based political consulting firm that conducted the survey.
In 2011 and again in 2015, Fouts overcame controversies and criticism to win re-election with more than 80% of the vote.
But the hateful comments the mayor made on tape – taking aim at elderly women, blacks and handicapped children – have apparently taken their toll. Fouts continues to claim that the audio tapes were doctored, though a voice-recognition expert has concluded otherwise.
When the recordings became public in December and January, a public outcry ensued at city council meetings and in protests at City Hall. The council has brushed aside calls for Fouts’ resignation.
DiSano said he waited “until the water settled” to conduct the poll, but now he is convinced that “the blood is in the water.”
A former Fouts campaign consultant, DiSano claims that he has heard the mayor make crude racist comments about blacks in the past, and the Democratic political operative has brashly castigated the mayor repeatedly over several months. DiSano said he hopes to recruit a candidate to challenge Fouts in the 2019 city elections.
The DiSano Strategies automated poll of 761 likely voters was conducted from Sunday to Tuesday. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The survey revealed that Fouts’ support stands at 37% among voters under the age of 50. As for the seniors 65 and older who represent the mayor’s key base of support, their backing is down to 55%, which is more than 30 points below where it stood in the past.
In the last two Warren elections, more than eight in 10 voters who turned out were 50 years old and above.
