My biggest surprises in Idaho survey: abortion and school choice | Opinion
The two biggest surprises for me from Friday’s release of the annual Idaho Public Policy Survey from Boise State University were about abortion and the state’s new school choice tax credit.
The survey showed majority support for both.
Abortion initiative
The survey showed about 60% of Idahoans either strongly support or somewhat support the language of an abortion initiative that could be on the November ballot.
This is very good news for the organizers of the Idaho Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act, which has about 65,000 signatures so far, according to Melanie Folwell, who is leading the effort to get the initiative on the ballot.
Folwell said the results affirm their own polling, which showed 59% of Idahoans said that abortion should either be legal in almost all cases or legal in some cases with some restrictions.
Folwell said she was particularly encouraged by the fact that “strong support” was the largest segment in the Idaho Public Policy Survey’s polling and that 47% of Republicans supported the measure.
Interestingly, when the survey asked respondents whether they support the measure and included the title of the initiative in the question, strong support was higher. When the question was asked without the name of the initiative, strong support dropped by seven points, and somewhat support went up by 5.4 points.
Opposition went up without the initiative title in the question, which suggests initiative organizers should hammer away at the title “Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act,” and repeat it over and over.
The results are also interesting in light of the fact that the initiative’s title was the source of a legal battle between Idaho United for Women and Families, the organizers of the initiative, and the state, which wanted the short title to be “Measure establishing a right to abortion up to fetus viability and to make reproductive decisions regarding one’s own body.”
Report author Matthew May pointed out that two years ago, the survey correctly predicted the outcome of that year’s election on an open primary and ranked-choice voting initiative. The survey that year showed 29% support; the result of the election: 30% support.
So if these poll results hold up, and it gets on the ballot, the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act has a good chance of winning.
School choice tax credit
Another surprising result from the survey was support for the Idaho Parental Choice Tax Credit, which the Legislature passed last year. Applications opened up this month, with 7,300 students so far applying.
In all, 56-61% strongly or somewhat support the law, which provides up to $5,000 per student in refundable tax credits to send their children to private or religious schools.
Republicans supported it the most (69-72%) and Democrats mostly opposed it (41-45% support), while independent voters showed a little more support (49-54%).
The results of this year’s survey are flipped from the results of a similar question last year.
When asked last year if they would support the “use of tax dollars” to pay for private or religious schools if a family chooses not to send their child to a local public school, only 38% said they somewhat or strongly supported it, while 53% opposed it.
I suspect that the reason for the dramatic change is that Idahoans don’t see a refundable tax credit as the same as “the use of tax dollars,” which is how the question was worded last year.
Unfortunately, refundable tax credits are a use of tax dollars.
Survey respondents showed a level of measured consideration, though, with 36% saying they’d like to keep the credit but see how it works before making changes.
We’ll see how the program does this year.
Depending on how things go, it will be interesting to see the results of next year’s survey.
Scott McIntosh is the opinion editor of the Idaho Statesman. You can email him at smcintosh@idahostatesman.com or call him at 208-377-6202. Sign up for the free weekly email newsletter The Idaho Way.
