Washington United for Marriage Hails Poll Confirming High Marks for Marriage Equality from Democratic and Independent Voters
(Seattle, WA) A new, independent, statewide poll finds that an overwhelming majority of voters approve of the Washington’s law extending civil marriage to same-sex couples. Washington voters approve of the law by a 54-33% margin. In addition to extraordinary support by Democrats (87%), the poll also found significant support among Independents, nearly mirroring the full poll, at 52-36%.
Next week, Washington United for Marriage expects opponents to submit more than enough signatures to put the existing law allowing committed same-sex couples to marry in Washington up for referendum in November. The poll was taken May 22-24 of 500 voters, with a margin of error of 4.4 percent.
http://washingtonunitedformarriage.org/...
This is pretty close to the results of a University of Washington poll conducted last October which showed majority support for same-sex marriage by a slightly narrower 17% margin -- 55-38%. If you look at the polls together and note the evolution, there are slightly more undecideds now than in October (7% in October, 13% now), with nearly all of those undecideds being pulled from the anti-Marriage Equality side of the ledger. We all know that public opinion on this issue only moves in one direction, so we should expect that the repeal will fail by a 20+% margin in November.
A side note to this: Rep Jay Inslee will be the Democratic nominee for governor, and AG Rob McKenna will be the Republican. Inslee was the first of Washington's Congressional delegation to come out in support for Marriage Equality, long before our current governor and our two US senators, all Democratic women. Meanwhile, McKenna always said his position was the same as President Obama's. Well, he can't hide behind Obama's coat on this issue any longer and has had to reassert his own opinion that marriage is between one man and one woman.
This is a GOTV issue for many Washingtonians which can only help Inslee's chances of winning the governor's race -- a race that McKenna has had an upper-single-digit lead in since the beginning but which is now a statistical dead heat (39% Inslee, 43% McKenna, 18% Other/DK; 4.4% MOE)
Inslee has far more upside. As a US Representative he's not as well known around the state as AG Rob McKenna who has been on the statewide ballot twice before, winning re-election at Attorney General in 2008 with 59% of the vote. 52% of the respondents in the poll had no opinion or were unfamiliar with Inslee, which contrasts with 42% for McKenna.
The demographic that showed no opinion or familiarity with Inslee are the 18-34 year-olds, which are typically the age group that mostly strongly supports Marriage Equality. 49% of respondents in that age group are unfamiliar with Inslee and 24% have not yet formed an opinion -- so nearly 3 of every 4 voters in that group have yet to make up their mind. (Btw, these are Likely Voters so it's assumed that one day they will.)
22% of non-whites, which tend to be loyal Democrats, are still undecided on the race. Those who have formed an opinon favor Inslee 46-30%. Similarly, 17% of those who voted for Obama in 2008 are still undecided, as opposed to only 9% of those who voted for McCain. The 2008-Obama voters who have formed an opinion favor Inslee 65-16%.
Inslee has his work cut out for him, that's for sure, but it's important to note that only one Washington governor since 1919 had been previously elected to a statewide office, and that's our current one, Christine Gregoire, who was McKenna's precedessor as Attorney General.
In the last 63 years our governors had previously been two King County Executives (Spellman and Locke), a Pierce County Executive (Gardner), a US Representative (Lowry), two state senators (Rossellini and Evans), a Mayor of Seattle (Langlie), and a pro-nuke marine biologist who was the first director of the Pacific Science Center (Dixie Lee Ray). So not only CAN it be done, but history is on Inslee's side.
http://www.strategies360.com/...