New poll looks at political divides on race and gender issues

Politics

Respondents were surveyed about their support of Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, same-sex marriage, and other topics.

A national poll released by UMass Amherst and WCVB looked at how different political ideologies think about topics of race and gender, according to WCVB.

The poll looked at the responses from 1,000 individuals about their support of statements pertaining to race, gender, and sexuality. The poll included samples from May 5 to May 9 and reported the margin of error is 3.5%.

For questions about race, breakdowns between different political parties and ideologies were the largest.

For example, respondents were asked if they supported the Black Lives Matter movement. While 73% of Democrats said they supported the movement’s goals and 60% said they support the movement’s tactics, for Republicans, these percentages were 11% and 4%, respectively.

Seventy-nine percent of conservatives said they do not think Critical Race Theory should be taught at any age. For liberals, this percentage was 7%.

For people who voted for Trump in 2020, 82% oppose teaching Critical Race Theory while only 20% of those who voted for Biden are against it.

Similarly, 61% of conservatives think schools should prohibit talking about race in schools, but only 6% of liberals agree. Twenty-eight percent of moderates agreed.

UMass initially asked about support for reducing police funding in April of 2021 and compared those answers in this poll. While support for reduced funding has gone down from both parties between then and now, for liberals this went down from 75% to 62%. For conservatives, it went down from 10% to 9%.

In regards to questions about gender, parties and political ideologies were also split.

Seventy percent of Republicans support a bill that prohibits transgender youth from joining school-sponsored sports teams that match their gender identity, while 22% of Democrats support the bill.

For liberals, 96% said they supported same-sex marriage, while 33% of conservatives were in support.