More than half of Arizona voters oppose border wall, Mexican import tax
Jan 30, 2017, 11:16 AM | Updated: 3:04 pm
(AP Photo/Gregory Bull, file)
(AP Photo/Gregory Bull, file)
PHOENIX — More than half of Arizona opposes the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and a proposed tax on Mexican imports to fund that wall, a poll released Monday said.
The poll from Data Orbital said 54 percent of Arizona voters are against the border wall, while 39 percent said they are in favor of it — a larger split than seen in an October poll about the same topic.
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to begin construction on the wall “within months.” At the time, he reiterated his campaign promise that he would force Mexico to pay for the wall, but it was unclear how he would do so.
On Thursday, Trump floated the idea of a 20 percent tax on goods imported from Mexico to pay for the wall.
While it is unknown how that tax would work, 57 percent of respondents in Monday’s poll said they oppose the idea. Thirty-three percent said they are in favor.
Monday’s poll showed more Arizona voters are against the wall after Trump’s election than before. In an October poll, 47 percent of Arizonans said they saw the border wall as a waste of money, while 34 percent supported its construction.
The Data Orbital poll surveyed 500 registered voters. It had a margin of error of 4.38 percent.
The respondents were 35 percent Republican, 31 percent Democrat and 34 percent independent.
Slightly more women (52 percent) than men participated in the poll.
About 60 percent of the people who responded were white. Seventeen percent were Latino or Spanish-speaking.
The poll was conducted on Jan. 27 and 28. Thirty percent of respondents were reached via cellphone, while 70 percent were contacted on a landline.
