Conducted by the University of Texas/Texas Tribune.
By Raif Karerat
In a survey taken before last week’s tragic terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, Texas voters listed illegal immigration and foreign terrorist groups at the top of their list of greatest threats to the U.S., according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.
Given a list of possible threats to the United States, 22 percent chose illegal immigration, followed by 18 percent who chose foreign terrorist groups such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, which were both mentioned by name.
The other options in the poll respondents chose were “polarization/intractable partisan conflict” (12 percent), decaying American infrastructure (10 percent), “gun violence/mass shootings” (9 percent), unfiendly foreign nations (e.g. Russia, Iran, China)” at 8 percent, “racial tensions” (6 percent), “climate change” (5 percent), and “computer network vulnerabilities” 2 percent), while 6 percent penciled in “other” and 3 percent stated they didn’t know or had no opinion.
Self-identified Democrats were less likely to list immigration as a threat, while 18 percent of independent voters and 36 percent of Republicans listed it first, according to the Texas Tribune. Foreign terrorist groups were among the top items chosen by all three groups: 14 percent of Democrats, 20 percent of independents, and 21 percent of Republicans listed that as the top threat facing the country.
“Even before the terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday, Texans expressed deep concern over border security,” said Daron Shaw, co-director of the poll and a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. “I may be going out on a limb here, but I doubt Texas voters agree with Bernie Sanders’ statement [in Saturday’s Democratic debate] that climate change represents a more urgent threat than jihadist terrorism.”
The survey of 1,200 registered voters was conducted over the internet from Oct. 30 to Nov. 8.
1 Comment
Good idea to run a poll such as this and appreciated.