While most Seattleites support reducing police funding, they oppose defunding the department by 50% as protestors have demanded, a Crosscut/Elway poll has found.
Among Seattle voters, 54% favor diverting funding from police to social services and community programs while 38% oppose the idea. In King County, a narrower plurality of 49% – 43% supports the funding shift. Cutting police funding by 50% is strongly opposed in both Seattle and King County by nearly identical margins (20% – 71% and 20% – 73%, respectively).
Respondents expressed low support for how the Mayor and City Council are handling the demonstrations and police reform.
Nearly 3 of 4 respondents gave the Council a negative rating. The poll found that 44% rated the Council’s performance as poor. Only 4% rate the Council’s performance as excellent and another 17% good.
Fifty-seven percent rated Durkan as doing a poor or fair job. Thirty-eight percent credited her with doing a good or excellent job.
The poll of 200 Seattle voters and 200 King County voters was conducted September 26 through October 1. Each group has a 7% margin of error and 95% confidence level. That means results would be within 7 percentage points 95% of the time if the poll were conducted 100 times.
