OSP Poll

NEW POLL: 62% OF LIKELY N.C. GENERAL ELECTION VOTERS SUPPORT OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIPS

36% of respondents “strongly” favor the program

Raleigh (Wednesday, December 1)—Nearly two-thirds of likely voters in North Carolina’s General Election support the Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), according to a new poll commissioned by Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina (PEFNC).

Fully 62% of respondents favor OSP compared to just 28% who oppose. Moreover, 36% of those who favor OSP do so “strongly,” compared to just 18% of those who oppose the program who do so “strongly.”

“In our era of deep division and hyper partisanship, how many issues garner as much support as we are seeing for the Opportunity Scholarship Program?” asked PEFNC president Mike Long. “The reason is simple: Opportunity Scholarships allow low- and middle-income families to send their child to an educational choice that’s right for them. This program puts into reality the belief that we should fund students, not systems and bureaucracies. North Carolinians realize this and overwhelmingly support the program.”

Respondents to the poll also opposed the idea of the N.C. Supreme Court declaring OSP unconstitutional by a margin of 2 to 1.  As for likely voters’ views on teachers’ unions, 39% had an unfavorable view compared to 36% with favorable and 20% with no opinion.

In response to the question on where parents would want to send their children to school if cost and distance were not factors, 52% chose a non-traditional public school option and 38% chose traditional public school. The breakdown on the school choice options was 22% choosing a religious private school, 10.9% choosing a non-religious private school, 10.5% choosing a charter school, and 8.6% choosing a home school.

Other key results include:

• Respondents favored Republican candidates over Democratic candidates for the two vacancies on the N.C. Supreme Court in 2022 by a 51% to 39% margin.
• Fifty-seven percent have an unfavorable view of President Joe Biden compared to 41 percent with a favorable view.
• As for Gov. Roy Cooper, his favorability rating is 45% compared to 43% unfavorable.

“What we are finding is that the past two years have been a breakout moment for the school choice movement in our state,” said Long. “Even while more and more parents are clamoring for options, the real and substantial progress we are seeing continues to be fought tooth and nail by the education establishment, which wants parents to only have one option—their locally zoned public school. Here is what parents and voters are telling us: That type of thinking does not reflect the varied options and demands of our 21st century life. School choice is here to stay.”

The poll was conducted Nov. 6-8 and surveyed 500 likely voters in the General Election. Thirty-seven percent of those polled were registered Democrats, 33% registered Republicans, and 29% registered Independents or with other affiliations.

See the poll here.