Utah voters say the economy and education are most important to them in the 2016 election while the fight over public lands ranks near the bottom.
A new UtahPolicy.com survey by Dan Jones & Associates finds 18% of Utahns say the economy is the most important issue for them when they decide which candidates to support in this year’s election. 13% picked school and education while 6% said healthcare. No other issue got more than 4% support.
Control of public lands in the state of Utah was identified by just 3% of respondents as the #1 issue while 4% said government overreach was their top concern for picking a candidate.
More than 30% of Utahns chose some other issue or said they didn’t know.
23% of Republicans chose the economy as their #1 issue while just 11% of Democrats agreed with that. 16% of independents identified the economy as their top issue.
Education was the #1 issue for Democrats at 14%. Independents also picked education at the top (17%), while just 12% of Republicans said it was their #1 priority in the election.
There’s a clear partisan divide when it comes to some political issues.
- 10% of Democrats said health care was their top issue. 5% of Republicans and 6% of independents agreed.
- 10% of Democrats picked air quality at the top issue. Only 1% of Republicans and 4% of political independents were on the same page.
- 7% of Democrats cited the environment as their primary issue. Only 1% of Republicans and 2% of independents agree with that.
The men in our survey said the economy was their top issue (23%) while schools and education came out on top among women (17%).
Millenials pick education as their top issue while other age cohorts say they are most concerned about the economy.
The fight over public lands, which is a favorite topic among Republicans in the Utah Legislature, is not resonating with Utahns as an election issue this year. The only group where the subject approached 10% were those Utahns who identified themselves as members of the Tea Party (8%).
In fact, Utah Tea Party members are mostly out of step with Utahns as a whole. The two groups say the economy is their top issue, but the two groups diverge from there.
- 12% of Tea Partiers say gun laws are their most important issue while just 3% of Non-Tea Party members agree.
- 10% picked government overreach as most important, opposed to 3% of those who are not members of the Tea Party.
- Just 2% of Tea Partiers chose education.
- Surprisingly, only 1% of Tea Partiers said taxes was most important to them.
The survey was conducted January 6-13, 2016 among 845 adult Utahns. Respondents were contacted via telephone (both landline and cell phone) and an online panel. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.37%.
