CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WJZY) – As Primary Election day in North Carolina draws closer and with the general election on the horizon, voters in the Tar Heel State are turning their attention to key political issues.
A WGHP/The Hill/Emerson College poll, the first non-partisan poll conducted in this race, found that a majority of North Carolinians support some form of legalized marijuana and sports betting, while many do not think the U.S. should send troops to Ukraine and don’t approve of the job President Biden has done while in office.
LEGALIZED MARIJUANA
According to the poll, 68% of voters support the legalization of medical marijuana. 19% of voters thought it should not be legal.
When it comes to recreational marijuana, support dropped to 46% in favor of legalization, with 43% of voters thinking it should be kept illegal.
A bill introduced to the North Carolina Senate in 2021 could clear the way for medical marijuana.
The Compassionate Care Act, or Senate Bill 711, would legalize medical marijuana to help ease pain and nausea associated with several illnesses and diseases. The bill will likely be debated this year.
The U.S. House passed legislation on April 1 that would legalize marijuana nationwide. It remains unclear if that bill has enough support to pass in the Senate.
SPORTS BETTING
North Carolina voters were largely split on the issue of legalized sports gambling in the state, the poll found. 42% of voters believed betting on sports should be legal compared to 37% who think it should stay illegal.
22% of voters were unsure.
A bill to license and tax sports betting in North Carolina was introduced in the Senate in 2021.
WAR IN UKRAINE
Nearly eight weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a war in Ukraine, 44% of North Carolina voters do not think the United States should send troops into the war-torn country. 28% of voters supported sending troops, while another 28% said they were undecided.
The United States has responded to the war with a number of sanctions on Russia. In March, the Biden administration sent an $800 million aid package that included a wide range of weapons and equipment for the Ukrainian military.
The State Department and Pentagon announced Tuesday that another $100 million in military aid would be sent to the country.
FAIR ELECTIONS
Does North Carolina run fair elections? A majority of voters, 53%, said they think the state’s elections are fair, the poll found. Just under a quarter of voters said no and another 23% were unsure.
Democrat voters showed a higher majority with 64% thinking the elections are fair. 47% of the registered Republicans thought elections in the state are fair.
BIDEN'S APPROVAL
As President Joe Biden continues through his second year in office, only 44% of North Carolina voters approve of the job he’s done, according to the poll.
52% of voters disapprove of the job he is doing.
The poll results broke things down even further, showing President Biden’s approval is higher among those with a college degree or higher at 57%.
That number drops to 35% among voters without a college degree.
HOW THIS POLL WAS TAKEN
The WGHP/Emerson College/The Hill North Carolina poll was conducted April2-4, 2022, and sampled 1,047 registered voters in North Carolina for the General Election and 508 for the Republican primary with a credibility interval (which is similar to a margin of error) of +/- 3 percentage points.
The data sets were weighted by gender, age, education, race and region based on 2020 turnout modeling.
Data was collected using a cellphone sample of SMS-to-web, an online panel and an Interactive Voice Response system of landlines.
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