by Kaylee Greenlee
A majority of Americans disagree with the call to defund the police and the proposed reallocation of funding, a national poll taken amid demonstrations for George Floyd found.
Almost two-thirds of Americans are against defunding law enforcement while 34% agree with the movement, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Friday. When asked about reducing the police budget to put resources toward other health and social programs, 60% of Americans opposed the idea while 39% supported it.
A Yahoo/YouGov poll conducted between May 29 and 30 found that 16% of 1,060 Americans supported less funding to law enforcement while 65% oppose the movement. The survey had a +/-4.3% margin of error.
“We need police! We’ve got to be careful what we say because they’ll twist things around and the narratives will change. I think there could be better terminology.”
~Spike Lee https://t.co/3S7b9GlCY6— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 12, 2020
Black Americans’ answers varied slightly, as 57% supported the movement to defund the police and 64% supported allocating the money to community programs, according to ABC News. Almost three in four white Americans and 57% of Hispanic Americans are opposed to defunding law enforcement, and two-thirds of white Americans and 58% of Hispanic Americans are against reallocating funds.
Democratic respondents majorly approved of defunding the police, with 55% of Democratic respondents agreeing, and 59% agreeing with reallocating funds to programs dealing with mental health, housing and education, ABC News reported.
Democrats differ more within their support than Republicans and Independents do in their opposition, according to the poll.
Republicans widely disapproved of defunding the police at 89%, and 86% of Republican respondents opposed the reallocation of funding, the poll found.
While some cities have initiated reforms for local law enforcement, national leaders have been hesitant to support drastic changes.
Former Vice President Joe Biden told CBS News he doesn’t support defunding the police, but “support[s] conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”
🚨 NEW POLL: 2/3 of Americans disagree with radical Democrat calls to Defund the Policehttps://t.co/mXicnmG43Q
— Marc Lotter (@marc_lotter) June 12, 2020
Despite protests occurring across the nation, only 26% of Americans responded that they were willing to attend a protest, ABC News reported.
Comparatively, a June 9 YouGov survey found that 57% of 6,964 U.S. adults supported elected officials participating in protests.
The poll took place between Wednesday and Thursday and surveyed 686 adults nationally with a margin of error of +/- 4.2 points.
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Kaylee Greenlee is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Defund the Police Poster” by yashmori. CC BY 2.0.
