A plurality of people nationwide side with labor unions over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the ongoing fight over collective bargaining rights, according to a new poll.
The Pew Research Center found that 42 percent of people favor the public employee unions, while 31 percent take Walker’s side and another nine percent take neither side in the skirmish. Eighteen percent answered “don’t know.”
The unions support may wane some, particularly in Wisconsin, if the Democratic state senators who have fled the state let today’s budget deadline pass. Walker has set today as a hard deadline, insisting that the failure to pass his budget plan will force the state to bypass an opportunity to re-finance its debt — and cost Wisconsin taxpayers $165 million.
At the Washington Post, Chris Cillizza takes a closer look inside the Pew numbers and finds that the budget showdown has devolved into a partisan fight. More than two-thirds of self-identified Democrats take the unions’ side in Wisconsin, while 53 percent of Republicans side with Walker. Independents are almost evenly split — 39 percent back the unions, 34 percent take Walker’s side.
There is also a considerable age and race divide at work in attitudes toward the Wisconsin situation, Cillizza writes.
Those between 18 and 29 years old are broadly supportive of the union position — 46 percent support versus just 13 percent support for Walker — while a plurality of people 65 years of age and older back the Republican governor in the dispute.
White voters are almost equally divided, with 38 percent favoring the unions and 36 percent behind Walker, non-white voters are not. Some 51 percent back unions in the dispute, while just 19 percent side with Walker.
Wisconsin Democrats — and national unions — have shown no signs of budging in the dispute, and the Pew numbers — when coupled with a new CBS News/New York Times poll that shows 60 percent of Americans oppose taking away collective bargaining rights to balance state budgets — are almost certain to embolden them to continue the fight.
