Raleigh, N.C. – North Carolina’s unaffiliated voters continue to support the death penalty for First-degree murder.
Sixty-two percent of unaffiliated voters support the death penalty for First-degree murder while 30 percent oppose it. Seven percent of voters said they do not know or have no opinion.
These numbers are statistically unchanged from an August 2010 Civitas poll when unaffiliated voters supported the death penalty 64 percent to 27 percent. Furthermore, these findings mirror consistent support among registered voters, including a December 2010 poll where voters supported it 71 percent to 25 percent.
Due to a de-facto moratorium on the death penalty in North Carolina, the last execution occurred on August 18, 2006.
“On the death penalty, unaffiliated voters voice the same opinion in support of the death penalty as other North Carolinians,” said Civitas Institute president Francis De Luca.
Support for the death penalty spans all party identifications as unaffiliated voters who call themselves Republicans support it 71 percent to 23 percent along with self-identified Democrats (54 percent to 37 percent), and 62 percent of those calling themselves independents.
The Civitas Poll is the only regular live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina. For more information on Civitas polling see http://www.nccivitas.org/category/poll/.
Full Text of Question:
“Do you support or oppose the death penalty for First-degree murder?”
Total Support – 62%
Total Oppose – 30%
Strongly Support – 36%
Somewhat Support – 26%
Somewhat Oppose – 14%
Strongly Oppose – 17%
Don’t Know/No Opinion – 7%
Click here for full results and crosstabs.
This poll of 400 unaffiliated general election voters in North Carolina was conducted August 15-16 by National Research, Inc. of Holmdel, NJ. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of unaffiliated voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters interviewed had to have voted in at least one of the past three general elections (2006, 2008, 2010) or be newly registered to vote since November 2, 2010.
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 400 interviews (registered voters) will be within +/-4.9% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every unaffiliated voter in North Carolina who had voted in at least one of the past three general elections or is newly registered since November 2, 2010.
###
Leave a Comment