Poll shows Florida abortion, marijuana referendums short of passage; bigger challenge for pot question

The two high-profile referendums on the 2024 Florida ballot — on abortion rights and recreational marijuana —  are polling short of what they need to pass.

A statewide public opinion poll released Thursday by Florida Atlantic University found less than 50% support for each. Passage requires 60% of the vote.

• Abortion: The measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida Constitution, Amendment 4, has support of 49% of those surveyed and opposition from 19%. About one-third of voters, 32%, said they didn’t know.

That shows a lot of potential undecided voters that abortion rights supporters — and opponents — can attempt to convert to their positions.

• Marijuana: The measure that would allow recreational marijuana, Amendment 3, is supported by 47% of voters. The opposition, 35%, is much higher than for the abortion question.

The poll found 18% didn’t know. To get to the 60% required for passage, supporters of recreational marijuana would have to convince seven out of every 10 undecided voters to vote “yes.”

The findings don’t mean the referendums are headed to defeat, said Kevin Wagner, an FAU political scientist and polling expert.

“Abortion looks like it is in a better position than the marijuana amendment,” said Kevin Wagner, an FAU political scientist and polling expert. “My caveat would be that it’s really early.”

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Given that one-third of those polled said they didn’t know how they’d vote on the abortion question, “it could go either way come November,” Luzmarina Garcia, an assistant professor of political science at FAU said in a written polling analysis.

The Florida Supreme Court approved the referendums for the ballot less than three weeks ago. Since then there’s been talk about the issues among political activists and elected officials, but the pro and con campaigns haven’t kicked into high gear.

At this point, Wagner said, some of the undecided is coming from people who haven’t focused on the ballot questions. “We’re pretty far from when people start to focus,” he said. “The challenge is we’re asking questions of people that they haven’t spent much time, if any, thinking about.”

Florida’s threshold for passage is tough. “Even if you get a majority of Floridians, it’s not a majority (to pass), it’s 60%.”

Abortion

Democrats overwhelmingly support adding abortion rights to the Florida Constitution, 68%-11%. Another 21% said they didn’t know how they’d vote.

Among Republicans, don’t know was the top answer, at 41%, with 33% supporting the referendum and 26% opposed.

Among independents, the proposal is supported 46% to 19%, with 35% unsure.

There was no difference in support between men and women.

Men (26%) were far more likely than women (12%) to oppose the referendum.

Among women, 39% said they didn’t know how they’d vote on the referendum, compared to 25% of men who said they didn’t know.

Support was higher, at 55%, among white college-educated voters than among white non-college educated voters, 47%. (The sample size wasn’t large enough to analyze differences between Black and Hispanic voters.)

The overall FAU findings are consistent with an Emerson College Polling survey released a week ago.

Emerson reported that 42% of Florida voters said they support the abortion rights amendment and 25% said they would vote no, with 32% undecided.

Marijuana

The poll found Democrats support the legalization question, 57% to 12%. Republican support is much lower: 39% with 50% opposed. Independents are between the two parties, with 43% in support, 28% opposed.

Independents were far more likely to say they didn’t know how they’d vote, at 28%, than Democrats or Republicans.

Support among men and women is about the same. But opposition among men is about 10 percentage points higher than among women. Among women, “don’t know’ was about 10 percentage points higher than among men.

There was virtually no difference based on white voters with college education and without college education. (The sample size wasn’t large enough to analyze differences between Black and Hispanic voters.)

Top issue

Abortion is a burning issue for a notable share of Florida voters, but it is far from the most important.

Pollsters asked voters to identify the most important issue in the upcoming election.

Immigration was cited by 25% of Florida voters, the economy by 22%, and cost of living by 15%.

Abortion was cited by 15%.

No other issue was in double digits.

Fine print

The poll of 865 Florida voters was conducted April 15 through April 17 by Mainstreet Research for Florida Atlantic University’s PolCom Lab, which is a collaboration of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and Department of Political Science.

The survey used text messages to reach registered voters who responded to a link to complete the survey online and used automated phone calls to reach other voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full survey of Democrats, Republicans and independents. The margin of error for smaller groups, such as Republicans or Democrats, or men and women, is higher because the sample sizes are smaller.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Facebook, Threads.net and Post.news.