Marriage Amendment: Gains for Yes Vote in Poll

Survey USA released a poll on April 3 showing a swing for the Kansas marriage amendment. In an identical poll released March 21, the Amendment passed by a 12-point margin; it now passes by 25 points. Instead of a 54%-42% split, it looks like a 62%-37% split.

Survey USA says "Most of this movement comes from Amendment supporters becoming more certain to vote, rather than from voters changing their minds about the Amendment."

Since we see only the filtered results, it is a little difficult to confirm their conclusions.

Looking at the breakdown in the two polls, I see some significant changes. Support among self-identified Republicans increased from 61% to 72% and among independents from 51% to 62%. Among self-identified conservatives, support increased from 66% to 79%. Conservative opposition fell from 30% to 20%. In the last two weeks, the margin for the amendment among conservatives increased from 26% to 59%. Since conservatives were about fifty percent of the expected voters, the swing would account for almost all of the over-all shift.

If this poll turns out to be accurate, one factor is the shift is certainly that the pro-Amendment forces, thanks to out of state interests, out spent the anti-Amendment folks by a considerable margin. Another factor, and this is just my impression--not the result of an in-depth study, is that the anti-amendment message was off-target.