NEW NATIONWIDE SURVEY SHOWS MORE THAN 54% OF “MAIN STREET” BUSINESS OWNERS WILL VOTE MCCAIN/PALIN TO 36% FOR OBAMA/BIDEN

Small Business Owners Choose McCain, Even Though 52% Say the Current Administration Has Not Represented Local Business Owners Well

Los Altos, CA October 7, 2008 – MerchantCircle, the largest social network of local business owners in the nation, today releases results from a nationwide survey of members. In crucial swing states, 52% of 820 small business owners surveyed in Florida planned to vote for Senator John McCain to 33% that planned to vote for Senator Barack Obama. In Ohio (338 surveyed), that number in favor of McCain jumps slightly to 54% to Obama’s 32%. The survey was conducted from September 25 to October 6 by MerchantCircle, and came from over 4,300 responders in all 50 states. MerchantCircle has 625,000 members across the nation.

“The McCain campaign appears to have separated itself from the Bush administration in the eyes of local businesses. Despite the fact that 52% of those surveyed said the Bush administration has not represented the interests of local business owners well, that does not seem to affect their choice for the next President of the United States,” says MerchantCircle Founder, Ben T. Smith, IV. “There’s still a tremendous opportunity for the candidates to speak to Main Street America – as is evidenced by the fact that fully 10% of those surveyed weren’t sure which candidate would most help small businesses grow.”

Key findings from the survey:

Of those (1602 surveyed) who rated that the current administration has represented the interests of local business as “not well at all”, 75.3% indicate they will vote for Obama, 8.7% McCain, 11% don’t know; and 4.9% other
Supporters of both tickets believe that the candidate’s economic policy is the most important issue; Obama supporters are least concerned with lowering taxes; McCain supporters least concerned with health care policies
55% have seen a “Severe” or “Moderate” decline in sales and revenue over the past year; 49.4% of McCain supporters versus 40% for Obama supporters.
McCain had the largest margin of support from businesses with 21+ employees – 64.7% to Obama’s 27.8%. Businesses that identified themselves as having one employee had the closest margin of difference – 47.9% indicated they would vote for McCain to 42% who would vote for Obama.

Over 96% of those surveyed said they plan on voting this November. When asked whether race or age would play a part in the election, only 38% said that race would not affect the outcome and only 36% believed that age would not be a factor in the decision.

Advance portions of the survey were released last week, with 80% of small business owners believing the $700 billion dollar bailout would not help them or were not sure. Complete statistics can be found at http://www.merchantcircle.com/corporate/blog/.

For individual state results on responses, email at Kevin {at} MerchantCircle(.)com.

About the Survey

The survey was conducted through a random sampling of MerchantCircle members, and in all, totaled 4,379 responses. An email notice was sent to participating merchants and the survey was answered through an internet questionnaire. 31.5% of the sampling had one employee, 47.9% had 2 to 5 employees, 11.2% had 6 to 10 employees, 5.1% had 11 to 20 employees, and 4.3% 21+ employees.

About MerchantCircle

Founded in 2005, MerchantCircle is the largest social network of local business owners in the nation with over 625,000 members. MerchantCircle is funded by Rustic Canyon Partners, Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and IAC.

MerchantCircle is located on Main St. in downtown Los Altos, California.