Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/3-6. Likely voters. MoE 3%
Do you favor or oppose increasing offshore drilling for oil and gas in U.S. coastal areas?
Favor 60
Oppose 32
Not Sure 8
Does the recent Deep Horizon oil spill make you more or less likely to favor or oppose increasing offshore drilling for oil and gas in U.S. coastal areas, or does it have no real effect on your point of view?
QUESTION: Does the recent Deep Horizon oil spill make you more or less likely to favor increasing offshore drilling for oil and gas in U.S. coastal areas, or does it have no real effect on your point of view?
More likely 32
Less likely 13
No Effect 55
Expanded drilling was popular across the board. Even among Democrats, a slight plurality continues to favor increasing offshore drilling (49-45). The strangest result was with Republicans on the question of whether the BP oil spill makes them more or less likely to support drilling. A majority said it would have no effect, but just over one-quarter (26%) said it made them more likely to support drilling, compared to 15% who said it made them less likely.
For what it's worth, my takeaway from this poll is that as long as we remain addicted to oil, there will be significant support for offshore drilling. I'm not saying it's pointless to fight an expansion of offshore drilling -- there are certainly ways of framing the debate that can be effective. But until we have alternatives to oil, there will always be demand for it. The most important lesson of this spill should be that we need to break our dependence not just on foreign oil, but on oil, period.
There has got to be a better way of harnessing the sun's energy than digging up gooey substance that's been buried deep underground for millions of years.
Update: The second question was incorrectly transcribed by R2K when they provided the poll to us. The above edit reflects the actual wording of the question as it was delivered in the polling. --mcjoan