Voters also
weigh in on immigration, Trump claims, guns, abortion, vouchers, more
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Tennessee voters dislike Obamacare and want it repealed, but not
until they’ve seen details of a replacement plan, the latest MTSU Poll shows.
They also support banning immigration from
“terror-prone regions” but think illegal immigrants already here should be able
to stay and apply for citizenship, and they split about evenly over believing,
doubting or not knowing what to think about President Donald Trump’s repeated
claim, without supplying evidence, that millions of illegal voters prevented
him from winning the popular vote during the 2016 election.
“Most of these opinions divide sharply along
political party lines,” said Ken Blake, Ph.D., director of the poll at Middle
Tennessee State University. “But there are some perhaps surprising areas of
cross-party agreement.”
In still other findings from the latest poll:
·
51 percent favor
requiring people to get a permit before carrying a handgun.
·
56 percent think
abortion should be illegal in most, or all, cases.
·
67 percent want
seatbelts on school buses, few think achievement testing in schools has
improved schools’ performance, and opinion divides about evenly between those
who support and oppose school vouchers.
Repeal Obamacare? Yes, but not so fast
Sixty-one
percent of Tennessee voters have an “unfavorable” view of the health reform
bill “known as the Affordable Care Act and sometimes referred to as Obamacare,”
and just about as many (60 percent) think Congress should repeal it. Only 31
percent hold a favorable view of the law, and 32 percent think Congress should
not repeal it.
But
most of those who want Congress to repeal the law want to see details of a
replacement plan first, the poll found. A follow-up question posed only to
voters who said they wanted the law repealed found that 67 percent of these
repeal supporters thought lawmakers “should wait to vote on a repeal until the
details of a replacement plan have been announced.” A significantly smaller 28
percent of them thought lawmakers should “vote to repeal the law immediately
and work out details of a replacement plan later.”
Not
surprisingly, attitudes toward the Affordable Care Act are highly partisan,
with 88 percent of Republicans holding unfavorable views of it compared to 58
percent of independents and only 16 percent of Democrats. A nearly identical
pattern is evident in support for repealing the law: 87 percent of Republicans
favor repeal, compared to 58 percent of independents and just 16 percent of
Democrats.
Tennessee
voters appear considerably more eager than Americans as a whole to see the law
rolled back. Identical questions in a December 2016
poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found
that 49 percent of Americans wanted the law repealed.
Immigrants from “terror-prone” regions
less welcome than illegal ones already here
A
solid 56 percent majority of state voters support “suspending immigration from
‘terror prone’ regions, even if it means turning away refugees from those
regions.” Thirty-one (31) percent are opposed, and the rest don’t know or give
no answer.
They
express relatively more benevolence, though, toward illegal immigrants already here.
Asked about “illegal immigrants who are living in the U.S.,” 56 percent of
voters in Tennessee say such individuals “should be allowed to stay in the U.S.
and eventually apply for citizenship.” The next-largest group, 31 percent, say
they “should be required to leave the U.S.,” and 6 percent say they should “be
allowed to stay in the U.S. legally, but not be allowed to apply for
citizenship.” The rest aren’t sure or give no answer.
These
attitudes, too, have sharp partisan divides. Seventy-eight (78) percent of
Republicans support suspending immigration from terror-prone regions, compared
to 56 percent of independents and 19 percent of Democrats. In nearly a
mirror-image split, 88 percent of Democrats think illegal immigrants living in
the U.S. should be allowed to stay and apply for citizenship, compared to 58
percent of independents and 37 percent of Republicans.
State voters split three ways on veracity
of Trump’s voting fraud claim
Tennessee
voters divide into nearly equal thirds when asked whether Donald Trump, who won
the electoral vote and presidency in the 2016 election, was right or wrong when
he “said he would have won the popular vote as well had the results not
included millions of illegal votes.”
About
28 percent say President Trump was right, 37 percent say he was wrong, and 34
percent aren’t sure. The rest give no answer. Fully 80 percent of Democrats say
he was wrong. Republicans divide about evenly between the 48 percent who say he
was right and the 42 percent who say they don’t know whether he was right or
wrong, but a significantly smaller 10 percent say he was wrong. Among
independents, 43 percent say he was wrong, and a significantly smaller 24
percent say he was right. In between, and statistically indistinguishable from
either group, 32 percent are unsure.
President
Trump has repeated the claim a number of times without providing evidence of
its veracity. The claim has been questioned by journalists, fact checkers and the
bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of State, a group that
represents state election officials. Despite their ambivalence about the
president’s claim, Tennessee voters appear confident that votes in Tennessee
were counted correctly. Seventy (70) percent have “a lot” of confidence that “votes
for president in the state of Tennessee were counted properly this past
November.” Another 13 percent have “some” confidence, 6 percent have “not much”
confidence, and 4 percent have “none at all.” The rest aren’t sure or give no
answer.
Other findings on handguns, abortion, and
school issues
Asked,
“Generally, what do you think the law should say about people carrying a handgun with them in public?”:
·
12
percent say the law should “prohibit people from carrying a handgun.”
·
51
percent say the law should “require a permit to carry a handgun.”
·
23
percent say the law should “require a permit to carry a handgun if the handgun
is concealed from view but not if the handgun is carried in plain sight.”
·
9
percent say the law should “allow people to carry a handgun without a permit,
whether concealed or in plain sight.”
Asked,
“Do you think abortion should be
legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in
all cases?”:
·
11
percent choose “legal in all cases”
·
25
percent choose “legal in most cases”
·
30
percent choose “illegal in most cases”
·
26
percent choose “illegal in all cases”
·
The
rest say they don’t know or decline to answer
Asked,
“What would be most likely to reduce the number of abortions performed:
stricter abortion regulations, more access to birth control and sex education,
both, or neither?”:
·
13
percent say “stricter abortion regulations”
·
31
percent say “more access to birth control and sex education:
·
37
percent say “both”
·
12
percent say “neither”
·
The
rest say they don’t know or give no answer
Asked,
“Some say requiring seat belts on school
buses would keep children safer. Others say there are cheaper, easier ways
to improve school bus safety. Do you think Tennessee should require seat belts
on all school buses, or not?”:
·
67
percent want seat belts required on all school buses
·
22
percent don’t want seat belts required on all school buses
·
The
rest don’t know or decline to answer
Asked,
“Would you favor or oppose providing most families in Tennessee with tax-funded school vouchers that they
could use to help pay for sending their children to private or religious
schools if they wanted to?”:
·
41
percent are in favor
·
45
percent are opposed
·
The
rest don’t know or decline to answer
Asked,
as a follow-up, “What about if school vouchers were provided only to poor
families whose children are attending low-achieving Tennessee schools?”:
·
38
percent are in favor
·
48
percent are opposed
·
The
rest don’t know or decline to answer
Asked,
“Over the last decade, there has been a significant increase in testing in the public schools to
measure academic achievement. Just your impression or what you may have heard
or read, has increased testing helped, hurt, or made no difference in the
performance of the local public schools?”
·
17
percent choose “helped”
·
33
percent choose “hurt”
·
37
percent choose “made no difference”
·
The
rest don’t know or give no answer
Methodology
Between Feb. 12-16, 2017, Issues
& Answers Network Inc. completed 600 telephone surveys for the poll among a
random sample of registered Tennessee voters aged 18 and over. Data were
collected using a Tennessee statewide voter registration sample with 60 percent
landlines and 40 percent cell phones. The average interview length was 13
minutes.
Quotas by gender and Grand Region
were implemented. Data were weighted based on respondent age to ensure the data
are representative of Tennessee registered voters. Landline numbers represent
58 percent of the completed interviews and 42 percent are from cell phones.
The survey’s margin of error is 4
percentage points, meaning one can be 95 percent confident that the population
percentage being estimated lies within four percentage points, in either
direction, of the result the sample produced.
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