TO: Interested Parties
FROM: McLaughlin & Associates
RE: National Survey Results – DOI Recommendation on Nat’l Monuments
Date: November 27th, 2017
The vast majority of voters oppose the U.S. Department of Interior Secretary’s recommendation to remove the protected status of certain national monuments. In fact, voters support the creation of more national monuments four to one over reducing them.
After being informed of Secretary Zinke’s recommendation to remove protections and shrink the land mass of certain national monuments, greater than four in ten, 42%, support the creation of more national monuments. Nearly half, 48%, of all voters would like to leave the number of protected national monuments as is, meaning that 90% support either creating more national monuments or keeping the same amount of monuments. Just 10% want to reduce the number of protected national monuments.
Support for protecting national monuments is strong across all key voter groups, including partisan affiliation. Republicans are more likely to prefer leaving the number of protected monuments as is, 51% to 34% (vs. “More”), while Democrats slightly prefer the creation of more monuments, 47% to 44% (vs. “As Is).
National monuments, like the Grand Canyon, are publicly owned lands that a President can chose to protect due to their special historic, cultural, or scenic value. The U.S. Department of Interior Secretary has recently recommended removing protections and shrinking the land mass of certain national monuments. How would you like to see the Trump Administration handle our national monuments? (Choices Rotated)
Support the creation of more national monuments to protect places of historic, cultural, scenic or scientific value.
Leave the number of protected national monuments as it is today, without adding or reducing the size or number of those areas.
OR
Reduce the number of protected national monuments and decrease the size of certain existing ones.
| Partisan Affiliation | Race/Ethnicity | Gender | |||||||
| Total | GOP | Dem. | Ind./O | White | Black | Hisp. | Men | Wom. | |
| More | 42% | 34% | 47% | 43% | 42% | 32% | 41% | 42% | 41% |
| As Is | 48% | 51% | 44% | 50% | 48% | 58% | 47% | 46% | 50% |
| Reduce | 10% | 15% | 8% | 8% | 10% | 11% | 13% | 12% | 9% |
In a follow-up question, 71% oppose removing the protected status of some national monuments if it would reduce the size of the monument’s public land and increase corporate development on this land. Only 22% would support this, while 8% are unsure.
There is majority opposition to this proposal across all key voter groups. By party, 75% of both Democrats and Independents oppose, as do 62% of Republicans. When looking at voters who approve of the job that President Trump is doing, opposition to this proposal is two to one, 63% to 30%. Among those who disapprove of the President, opposition is 78% to 14%.
Greater than seven in ten white voters, 73%, oppose this proposal, as well as 59% of both African Americans and Hispanics. Women were slightly more likely than men to oppose, 73% to 69%, respectively.
Millions of Americans and tourists visit America’s national monuments, like the Grand Canyon, every year to see historic sites, hunt, fish, camp, and explore. Our national monuments provide a quality of life and are an economic benefit to businesses and our economy. Do you support or oppose removing the protected status of some of our national monuments in order to reduce the size of its public land and increase the size of land for corporate development?
| Partisan Affiliation | Race/Ethnicity | Gender | |||||||
| Total | GOP | Dem. | Ind./O | White | Black | Hisp. | Men | Wom. | |
| Support | 22% | 30% | 18% | 16% | 21% | 25% | 29% | 26% | 17% |
| Oppose | 71% | 62% | 75% | 75% | 73% | 59% | 59% | 69% | 73% |
| Unsure | 8% | 8% | 7% | 9% | 6% | 16% | 12% | 5% | 10% |
| NET (S-O) | -49 | -32 | -57 | -59 | -52 | -34 | -30 | -43 | -56 |
Methodology: McLaughlin & Associates conducted a national survey of 1,000 likely November 2018 general election voters from November 9th to 13th, 2017. All interviews were conducted online and respondents were carefully selected and screened from a nationwide representative platform of individuals who elect to participate in online surveys. Interviews were stratified by state of residence, race, age, gender and partisan affiliation to correlate with actual voter turnout from previous even-year elections for President and U.S. Congress. The modeled error estimate is +/- 3.1%. Totals may not add up to exactly 100% due to rounding.
NATL Monument 11-27-17 Executive Summary_V2
