Building a Stronger Wisconsin Poll Finds Voters Overwhelmingly Think Walker has Gone Too Far in Proposals Related to Public Employees
Building a Stronger Wisconsin contracted with The Shop Consulting, Inc. to conduct a statewide poll regarding Governor Scott Walker’s proposed cuts to public employee benefits and collective bargaining rights. The poll consisted of a 600 response survey and was conducted on the evening of Wednesday, February 16th.
By a 2 to 1 margin, voters across that state are either strongly opposed to Walker’s proposal or think that it goes too far.
“There is no way to look at the results of this poll and not be convinced that voters from all walks of life, all ages and all across Wisconsin think Governor Walker has gone too far in both how much he expects public employees to contribute for their benefits and especially in proposing to eliminate their collective bargaining rights,” explained Randy Nash, Executive Director Building a Stronger Wisconsin.
The results show that while there is some support for increasing public employee contributions to pay for health care and retirement, those who oppose the proposal totally and those who think it has gone too far outnumber the supporters of the proposal almost 2-1.
When it comes to removing the ability to collectively bargain those opposing this change are even more solidly opposed with 65% opposing this portion of the proposal to only 31.9 percent supporting. Nearly 75% of those surveyed had no public employees in their household.
“We designed this poll to be a fair test of the Walker proposals and reached out to more than 600 Wisconsin voters. They have responded overwhelmingly that they think this proposal just goes too far,” continued Nash.
“Building a Stronger Wisconsin is releasing the poll results today so that legislators and the governor are clear about how Wisconsinites across the state feel about this proposal as they debate and still have a chance to change it to reflect the will of the people,” concluded Nash.
