Two New Polls Show Support for Casinos
A couple of new polls point to continued majority support in Massachusetts for keeping the state’s casino legislation in place, but they bring some mixed signals.
WBUR found that 56 percent of voters statewide support locating casinos in Massachusetts, compared to 38 percent who oppose the idea. That’s up in recent months, as previous WBUR polls pointed to 46-43 support in March and 49-39 percent support in May. By that measure, support for expanded gambling has grown in recent months.
But it contradicts a recent Boston Herald/Suffolk University poll, from about a month ago, which showed 47 percent of voters don’t favor keeping casinos in the state. That finding represented a big swing itself, as just a few months prior voters had shown 51-37 percent support for casinos.
Meanwhile, another newly released survey of Boston-area voters from the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth asked a different question: Would voters elect to repeal legislation allowing for casinos when the question shows up on ballots in November? The finding there: Voters would keep casinos in place, by a 46-41 margin, according to the Standard-Times of New Bedford.
That’s a bit more in keeping with a Boston Globe poll, which found 52 percent of likely voters would opt to keep the laws in place.
If there’s anything to draw when looking at these four separate findings, it could be that some voters who don’t like casinos would not vote to get rid of them, at least if the election was held today.
However, a few caveats could help explain the discrepancies a bit further. For instance, the UMass poll is different from the Globe’s in that it only focused on Greater Boston rather than the entire state.
And the WBUR poll was conducted after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled a ballot question could go forth, while the Suffolk/Herald poll came before the decision. While neither of those questions asked specifically about a repeal vote, instead gauging overall support for keeping casinos in the state, perhaps voters changed their tune a bit when repeal became an actual possibility. Both the Globe and UMass polls, which asked specifically whether voters would repeal the law, were conducted prior to the SJC decision.
Or, more likely, it might just be too early to really gain a ton of insight by polling as to what will happen in November.
“Polls are noisy, and we’ll know as more polls come out whether or not the [Supreme Judicial Court] decision was the high water mark, or is this the beginning of a new trend?’’ WBUR’s pollster told the radio station.
One thing that’s for sure: Even if voters are cool with casinos sticking around, they haven’t been too pleased with the performance of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. The Globe poll found that 52 percent of respondents lacked confidence in the gaming board. Fifty-one percent said the same to WBUR. That poll went a step further in finding that 29 percent said the licensing process, which has been fraught with hang-ups and perceived conflicts of interest, has been positive.
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