Residents Not Sold on New Oklahoma City Thunder Stadium
A new Emerson College Polling survey in Oklahoma finds Governor Kevin Stitt with a split approval: 32% approve of the job he is doing in office while 31% disapprove. President Joe Biden’s job approval is at 21%, while a majority of voters (65%) disapprove of the job he is doing in the Oval Office.
In a hypothetical 2024 Presidential Election matchup between former President Donald Trump and President Biden, 55% support Trump and 27% support Biden. Eleven percent support someone else, and 7% are undecided.
Oklahoma voters were asked which comes closest to their view on the 2016 and 2020 Elections, if Donald Trump in 2016, and Joe Biden in 2020, won fair and square, or if they stole their respective elections. A majority of voters (63%) think Trump won fair and square in 2016, while 19% think he stole the election. Voters are more split about 2020: 43% think Biden stole the election, while 35% think he won fair and square.
Trump and Biden voters were asked if there is anything that their preferred candidates could say or do in the next several months that would make them choose not to support them for office in 2024. Among Trump voters, 45% say there is nothing he could say or do that would make them change their minds, while 24% say they could change their minds. Among Biden voters, a majority (53%) say there is nothing that Biden could say or do in the next several months that would make them choose not to support him for president in 2024, while 18% can think of something that could make them change their mind.
Oklahoma City finalized plans last month to build a new downtown arena for the NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and plan to hold a citywide vote in December. Voters across the state were asked if they support or oppose a one percent sales tax for Oklahoma City residents to fund the new stadium.
A quarter of Oklahoma residents (25%) support this measure, 42% oppose it, and 34% are unsure or have no opinion. In Oklahoma City, approval is lower: 22% support the measure, 53%CQ oppose it, and 25% are unsure.
“While the sample of Oklahoma City residents is limited, the results are clear: 53% oppose the 1% sales tax to fund the $900 million stadium, versus 22% who support the plan – a 30-point margin against the tax,” Matt Taglia, Senior Director at Emerson College Polling noted. “Statewide, Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed, 46% to 25% in support, while Democrats are less vocal in their opposition at 36% to 31% in support.”
Midwest Study: The Oklahoma general election survey is part of a 22-state study on the Midwest region and surrounding states. Additional states will be released over the next two weeks, along with the study results by the Middle West Review that is researching perceptions of the Midwest region.
Methodology
The Emerson College Polling Oklahoma poll was conducted October 1-3, 2023. The sample consisted of 495 residents, with a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points. The sample of registered voters is n=447, with a credibility interval of 4.6%. The subset of Oklahoma City residents is n=82, proportional to their makeup of the state, with a credibility interval of +/- 10.8 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, age, party, race, and education. Turnout modeling is based on US Census parameters, and Oklahoma voter registration and voter turnout data by regions (OK SOS). Data was collected by contacting a list of landlines via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and emails provided by Aristotle, along with an online panel of voters provided by Alchemer.
It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry with them higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and know with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times.
This survey was conducted by Emerson College Polling, and questions included in this release are all sponsored by Emerson College. All questions asked in this survey with exact wording, along with full results and cross tabulations can be found here.
