Raleigh, N.C. – With the US House of Representatives set to vote on President Obama’s health care reform package this weekend, a new poll released today by the Civitas Institute shows North Carolina voter opposition to the bill reaching its highest levels. Additionally, a majority of voters want Congress to scrap the current bill and start over.
In the live caller poll of 600 likely 2010 voters, 50 percent of voters said they were opposed to the current health care plan being proposed, up three percent from 47 percent in February. 39 percent of voters said they support the proposal, down two percent from last month. Eleven percent of voters were unsure.
“As the vote on health care looms this weekend, support for the bill continues to decline in North Carolina,” said Civitas Institute President Francis De Luca. “It must be troubling for the NC congressmen who are supporting this or undecided to see public opinion growing more negative at this critical point in the debate.”
Additionally, a majority of voters (50.5 percent) said that Congress should scrap the plan and start over rather than build upon the current proposal. Only 39 percent said the current plan needed to be advanced.
Opposition to the reform proposal fell by five percentage points from last month among key unaffiliated voters, who are opposed to the bill by a 34-51% margin.
“With the opposition from unaffiliated voters growing, Obama is alienating the very voters that swept him into office just over a year ago,” added De Luca.
The Civitas Poll is the only monthly live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina. For more polling information on Civitas polling see www.nccivitas.org/media/poll-results/.
Full text of questions:
Do you support or oppose the health care plan being proposed by President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress?
Support – 39%
Oppose – 50%
Not Sure – 12%
Do you think it is better to build upon the health care plan presently working its way through the House and Senate or should Congress scrap the plan and start all over from scratch?
Build on current – 39%
Scrap and start over – 50.5%
Not Sure – 11%
Click here for full results and crosstabs.
This poll of 600 likely general election voters in North Carolina was conducted March 16-18 by Tel Opinion Research of Alexandria, Virginia. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.
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