Poll: School safety 'extremely important' to most Texans, abortion views remain divided
AUSTIN (KXAN) – A new University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll shows school safety was the only education issue that most Texans (55%) said was “extremely important” for the Texas Legislature to address.
“Improving school safety enjoys a degree of bipartisan support among voters,” said James Henson, co-director of UT Austin’s Texas Politics Project and a co-director of the poll.
According to the poll, school safety was essentially tied with curriculum content as the top priority among Republicans, while school safety was similarly tied with teacher pay and retention among Democrats.
“In the wake of the 2021 passage of some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, almost half of Texans, 47%, now think abortion laws in Texas should be made less strict, with 22% saying they should be made stricter and 21% saying that abortion laws should be left as they are,” according to a release on the poll results.
From the results, 79% of Democrats said abortion laws should be made less strict, and many Texas Republicans support the status quo, but 32% said abortion laws should be more strict.
According to UT, the poll also explored Texans’ attitudes in a variety of areas being addressed by the Legislature this session, including guns, gambling, marijuana and immigration.
Full results from the poll and methodological information are available on the Texas Politics Project website.