LITTLE ROCK — A majority of Arkansans who are “very likely voters” oppose legalizing medical marijuana and favor a statewide sales tax increase to fund highways by a nearly identical set of percentages, according to the annual Arkansas Poll released Wednesday.
The poll, conducted by the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, also shows a state preoccupied with the economy ahead of a presidential election in which most respondents favor Mitt Romney over President Barack Obama.
On the question of whether Arkansans should accept a 90 percent match of federal money to expand the state’s Medicaid program in coming years under the new federal health-care law, most said no.
The director of the Arkansas Poll said the newest and most surprising finding is the continuing trend, beginning in the fall of 2010, for the state’s independent voters leaning toward more conservative stances.
“For me, the standout thing this year is the consistent movement of ‘independent identifiers’ to a Republican preference,” said Janine Parry, a university political science professor who has headed the poll since its inception in October 1999. “What the independent voters are doing, they’re leaning right.”
For instance, of very likely voters asked about the November ballot question on legalizing medical marijuana, 53 percent opposed it, 43 percent supported it and 5 percent didn’t know, refused to answer or were characterized as “other.”
Similar percentages took the opposite stance on Referred Amendment 1, which would increase the statewide sales tax from 6 percent to 6.5 percent to fund highway projects in the next decade. Of the very likely voters, 53 percent favored the tax increase, 42 percent opposed it and 4 percent didn’t know, refused to answer or were characterized as “other.”
Fifty-eight percent of likely voters said they would be more likely to vote for Republican Romney for president this November, compared with 31 percent for Democratic Obama.
“Arkansas hasn’t voted for a non-native Democrat for the presidential contest since Jimmy Carter in ’76,” Parry said.
On the Medicaid question the state faces under the Affordable Care Act, 47 percent of very likely voters opposed expanding Medicaid, despite a promised infusion of 90 percent federal funding to pay for it in the coming years, while only 41 percent favored expansion.
The 2012 Arkansas Poll was conducted between Oct. 9 and Oct. 14. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Interviewers completed 800 live telephone interviews using a random sample of adult Arkansans.
This year, 20 percent of respondents were cell-phone users and 10 of the 800 interviews were conducted in Spanish.
The university hired Issues & Answers Network Inc. of Virginia Beach, Va., to conduct the poll. A vendor is typically paid between $20,000 and $25,000 to conduct the poll, Parry said.
The Arkansas Poll results are published on its website at www.uark.edu/depts/plscinfo/partners/arkpoll.php.
The website includes information not commonly provided by pollsters, the university said in a news release.
“To assess the representativeness of the sample drawn for the poll, the Arkansas Poll team publishes what most polling organizations do not: A comparison of survey respondents’ key demographic characteristics to those of the state as a whole,” the news release states.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/25/2012