Poll: More Than Half Of Arizonans Oppose Border Wall, Import Tariff

Published: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 - 5:05am
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A new poll found more than half of Arizona voters oppose President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall, and an even higher percentage say they’re against taxing Mexico to pay for it.

Phoenix-based Data Orbital conducted the poll, which found 54 percent of Arizona voters oppose the president’s executive order to build the wall, 57 percent are against using an import tariff to pay for it, and 49 percent have an unfavorable view of Trump. 

Registered Democrats don’t support the wall and registered Republicans are in favor of the tariff, said George Khalaf, president of Data Orbital.

“But I think the biggest bellwether were the independent voters that were nay on the tax, and were nay on the wall,” Khalaf said. 

Arizona’s efforts to increase trade with Mexico, and the state’s improving economy, likely factored into the results, Khalaf said.

“I think you should take away, that obviously this specific policy issue, there needs to be a bit more nuance to it,” Khalaf said. “And I think we’re going to see that with a handful of executive orders that come out.”

Five hundred registered voters participated in the poll, had a 4.38 percent margin of error. Forty-nine percent of participants said they see Trump as somewhat or strongly unfavorable. Thirty-nine percent said they have a strong or somewhat favorable view of the president. One percent said they’d never heard of him.