Survey: Voters back allowing ‘peaceful’ Capitol protests
NASHVILLE — Most Tennesseans, regardless of party, said residents should be able to protest at the state Capitol if they go about it peacefully, according to a Vanderbilt University poll of 1,005 registered voters.
Eighty-two percent of registered voters said they strongly or somewhat feel peaceful protests should be allowed. That included 73% of Republican voters self-identifying as Make American Great Again backers of former President Donald Trump and 76% of non-MAGA Republicans. Ninety-one percent of Democrats said peaceful protests should be allowed as did 84% of independent voters.
In the most recent session, the Capitol, chamber galleries and committee rooms saw mass protests following the shooting deaths of three 9-year-olds and three adults at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville. The 28-year-old shooter was a former student with a history of mental health problems and was undergoing treatment.
Hundreds of children, parents and others flooded the Capitol demanding gun control measures, none of which were adopted during the regular session.
During last summer’s special session on firearms and other matters, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, ordered a crackdown on protests. Among other things, the House had a new rule barring demonstrators from holding signs. A Nashville judge later issued a restraining order preventing the House from prohibiting signs.
TRUMP SUPPORT IN TENNESSEE
Another question in the poll, which has a margin of error of 4.3%, plus-orminus, found former President Donald Trump with 56% support among Tennessee Republicans. If the president were to be convicted of a felony in any of his four pending criminal trials, Trump could suffer an 8-point decrease in support, dropping him from 45% to 37%, according to the poll.
President Joe Biden’s approval rating, meanwhile, is at 27%.
Trump faces a number of Republican challengers. GOP primary candidate and Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was at 18% support among GOP voters, while former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley was at 12%, according to the survey.
While Trump’s situation is not expected to turn next year’s solidred Tennessee’s general election into a nail-biter, sentiments about Trump if he were to be convicted could have an effect in battleground states, according to Josh Clinton, co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll, who holds the Abby and Jon Winkelried Chair at Vanderbilt and is a professor of political science.
“When we consider the narrow margins of victory in some of the battleground states we saw in 2020, the changes we find in the enthusiasm of support among independents and non-MAGA Republicans suggest that a conviction could have a decisive effect in closely contested states,” Clinton said in a news release accompanying the poll. “These results are perhaps particularly compelling because they come from Tennessee — a reliably red state where you think voters may be least likely to change their opinion of Trump, given how much support he has in the state.”
The most recent Democrat to carry Tennessee in a presidential contest was Bill Clinton in 1996 with then-U.S. Sen. Al Gore, of Tennessee, as his running mate. As a presidential candidate eight years later in 2000, Gore famously lost his home state to Republican George W. Bush.
It’s gotten even worse over the years for Democrats, with Republicans now controlling the levers of state power with GOP governors, a durable GOP supermajority in both the state House and Senate, and an all-Republican appointed state Supreme Court.
Approval of Republican Gov. Bill Lee is at 53%.
REJECTING FEDERAL EDUCATION FUNDING
Yet another question on the Vanderbilt poll asked registered voters to weigh in on discussions by Republicans on possibly rejecting some $1.8 billion in annual federal education funding for public K-12 schools.
Fifty-eight percent said the money should be accepted and that federal guidelines should be followed on use of the money. Forty-one percent of non-MAGA Republicans agreed it should be accepted regardless of federal strings, and support of the federal money dropped even lower among MAGA Republicans. Twenty-two percent of MAGA voters agreed the money should be rejected.
Ninety-five percent of Democrats said the money should be accepted regardless of strings as did 96% of independent voters. Vanderbilt’s survey did not go into details on what the funding includes. Categories include the federally funded free-and-reduced price meals for lowincome children.
DEMOCRAT PHILLIPS FAILS TO QUALIFY FOR PRIMARY
According to Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett’s office, U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., won’t be on next year’s Super Tuesday ballot in Tennessee. He failed to register with the state Democratic Party. Moreover, according to Hargett, Phillips also didn’t meet the requirement for 2,500 valid-voter signatures.
As a result, Biden will be the sole name on the Democratic primary ballot. Phillips is having issues in several other states as well.
“Unilaterally taking away the right of rank and file Democrats, including a disproportionate number of Black voters demanding a more affordable America, is reprehensible,” Phillips said in a statement to the news site Semafor. “If Joe Biden is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump and lead us to a safer, more affordable future, let him compete for that privilege without his supporters suppressing and disenfranchising millions of voters.”
Besides Trump, DeSantis and Haley, other Republicans in Tennessee’s GOP presidential primary are Texas pastor and businessman Ryan Binkley; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Florida businessman David Stuckenberg, a former special operations officer and national security strategist.
Super Tuesday was created in the 1980s with the active involvement of then-Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter and fellow Southern Democrats. McWherter and others wanted voters in Southern states to have more of a say in the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination process and other primary elections going forward.