Nearly two-thirds of Arizona voters would pay higher taxes to fund public schools.

A new Morrison-Cronkite poll showed Democrats and liberals with the strongest support for higher taxes. Nearly half of conservative independents and just over 43 percent of Republicans also support paying more to fund education.

Education was the top issue for most Arizona voters. Polling director David Daughtery with the Morrison Institute for Public Policy said 56 percent of registered voters favor Gov. Doug Ducey’s plan to withdraw additional money from the state’s land trust fund to support schools.

“The state is concerned about education and the state is concerned about all things related to education,” Daughtery said. “It invariably rises to the top in terms of interest issues.”

Over three-fourths of voters also supported full-day kindergarten funded by the state.

On immigration, over two-thirds of Arizona voters support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. That included 62 percent of voters who identify as conservative and independents and about 46 percent who identify as Republicans. Daugherty said he was surprised those numbers were that high among those leaning to the right.

“I thought that was a little bit of a surprise, considering how outspoken the [Republican] presidential candidates are,” he said.

The poll of 904 registered voters was conducted Oct. 7-15. The margin of error for most items is about three percentage points.