Survey says Montana ‘Freedom Caucus’ out of step with voters

This isn’t shocking, given their excessive right-wing agenda and positions.

Listed below are among the outcomes. You may entry the total survey outcomes and charts at https://www.middleforkmt.org/submit/poll-legislature-out-of-step-with-montanans:

• Montana voters overwhelmingly don’t imagine that the state’s structure ought to be amended in any method on any situation, strongly really feel that public colleges ought to be correctly funded and {that a} lady’s proper to decide on ought to be authorized in most circumstances. In addition they really feel that elections within the state are secure, honest and safe and that candidates for college board and judges ought to proceed to run with out partisan affiliation, moderately than altering the legislation in order that they run as members of a political occasion.

• General, two-thirds of Montana voters (63%) oppose amending the state’s structure, with 45% strongly opposing amending it. Simply 15% would help amending it. No actual partisan hole emerges beneath the floor with 64% of Democrats, 66% of independents, and 61% of Republicans in opposition to amending the structure in any method.

• Moreover, Montanans imagine that abortion ought to stay authorized. In truth, 6-in-10 voters total say that abortion ought to be authorized in all or many circumstances. There isn’t any actual distinction beneath the floor, with a majority of Montana voters indicating that abortion ought to be authorized in lots of circumstances, with girls over age 50 the almost definitely to say as a lot. Regionally, voters in Missoula and in Butte/Bozeman are the almost definitely to say that abortion ought to be authorized in most circumstances.

• As for the finances surplus and the place these {dollars} ought to be directed, there’s a actual sense amongst Montanans that public colleges usually are not adequately funded. In truth, 61% of voters total disagree that they’re well-funded. Sixty % of unbiased voters and 62% of voters who’re undecided in a generic contest for state Legislature imagine public colleges usually are not adequately funded. Moreover, 7-in-10 voters disagree {that a} portion of their tax {dollars} ought to go to non-public and spiritual colleges, with 60% of Republicans and 75% of voters who’re undecided within the generic poll saying that no portion of their tax {dollars} mustn’t go to non-public and spiritual colleges.

• Voters do, nevertheless, agree {that a} portion of the finances surplus ought to be directed to higher funding nursing properties and senior long-term care, significantly in gentle of the truth that 11 senior assisted residing facilities have been closed due to a scarcity of funding. This perception crosses partisan strains and is overwhelming. Equally, voters do agree that the state’s Medicaid program ought to be maintained, and once more, this perception crosses partisan strains.

• Lastly, alongside comparable strains, voters strongly disagree that faculty boards and judges ought to run as partisan political candidates as a substitute of working as nonpartisan candidates as they do immediately. Because the graph shows, voters of all partisan stripes disagree that these candidates ought to run as a member of a political occasion, and voters who’re undecided in a generic poll for state legislature overwhelmingly disagree with adjustments to the present legislation.

The Feb. 7-16 phone survey reached 867 seemingly November 2024 basic election voters, 18 years of age or older. A base pattern of 600 voters statewide was supplemented by oversamples of voters in Cascade, Flathead and Yellowstone counties. Sixty-eight % of seemingly voters have been reached on cellphones, and 32% on landlines. Twenty-five % of voters within the pattern self-identified as Democrats, 37% as independents and 37% as Republicans.

It is time for the “Freedom Caucus” to return down from their giddy euphoria of the election outcomes and begin to work on the very actual points going through Montana’s residents and communities. As to their obsession with intercourse, drag reveals and the persecution of trans youth and the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood, most of us out right here in the true world have had sufficient of your stupidity about these of us.

Cease it and simply go away them alone.