Poll: 56 Percent of GOP Voters Oppose Earmarks

According to Morning Consult/Politico poll, most registered GOP voters oppose the House bringing back the use of earmarks.

House Republicans voted 102-84  on a resolution to reinstate earmarks last week, sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL). In the renewed practice, Republican lawmakers must write a justification for any earmark they would like to sponsor, in addition to verifying they have no financial stake in the earmark.

The surveyor asked whether the registered GOP voters supported or opposed the House resolution to resume the use of earmarks. Including that earmarks were a “previously banned practice of including provisions in bills that direct public funds to specific recipients such as individual congressional districts.”

The findings show that 56 percent of the Republican voters are opposed to the move reinstating earmarks. The survey also found that 40 percent “strongly oppose” the move. Only 15 percent were found to support the effort.

However, only 31 percent of the Democrats surveyed opposed the effort to restate the earmarks, with 27 percent were founds that support the effort. More Independents were found to oppose the effort, with 47 percent opposing earmarks and only 12 percent support them.

Overall, the survey found 43 percent of the voters opposed earmarks, with 19 percent overall supporting earmarks.

“The findings reflect a negative reception to the news from much of the country’s conservative wing, from dissidents on Capitol Hill and influential outside groups such as the Club for Growth to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board,” Morning Consult wrote.

The survey was asked between March 19-22, surveying 1,994 registered voters overall and a subsample of 635 GOP voters. The overall margin of error was 2 percentage points with 4- and 3-point margins of error for responses from Republicans and Democrats.