Black people oppose defunding the police by an overwhelming margin of 20 percentage points, according to a new poll that revealed broad support for reforming local law enforcement over proposals to gut resources.
Left-wing activists are urging that police departments be defunded after George Floyd, a black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. But most across the political spectrum, including most rank-and-file Democrats, are opposed. Instead, they support significant reforms to policing practices, a YouGov survey for HuffPost found.
“Self-described liberals support defunding the police by a 13-point margin,” HuffPost reported. “But nearly every other ideological and demographic group opposes it. Democrats and Democratic leaners oppose it by a 4-percentage point margin, and Black Americans oppose it by a 20-point margin.”
Only about a quarter of black people supported defunding the police, while 49% opposed it.
In the poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday, 27% of adults expressed support for defunding the police. But when presented with a host of reforms to choose from, these proposals enjoyed vastly more support. For instance, 73% backed a ban on chokeholds, 72% approved of the creation of a federal registry that would compile complaints against police officers, and 69% supported the idea of national standards to regulate the use of force.