Majority of Utahns support the state taking over national parks

New public opinion poll highlights anger towards park closures

Salt Lake City, UT (October 8, 2013) — A new poll conducted by Libertas Institute shows that a majority of Utah voters oppose the closure of national parks throughout the state. 500 random Utah voters were contacted and administered a questionnaire. The margin of sampling error is ±4.38%.

Key findings include:

• 81% of Utah voters believe that the park closures were not necessary due to the “shutdown.”
• 48% support acts of civil disobedience to gain access to closed parks. 41% oppose.
• 68% support state funding of parks to keep them open. 68% would also support forcefully opening parks if the offer of funding was rejected.
• 50% believe that the park closures will have a negative or very negative impact on Utah’s tourism industry.
• 55% support Utah taking over national parks on a permanent basis. 23% oppose.
• 58% of Utah Republicans blame the Obama administration for shutting down the parks, but roughly the same percentage of Democrats blame Congressional Republicans.

Click here for the full results.