A new poll from Orion Strategies shows likely voters in West Virginia largely support universal background checks for all gun purchases.
“We found 75% of all respondents believe that universal background criminal and mental checks should be mandatory in order to purchase a firearm from any location,” Curtis Wilkerson with Orion Strategies said of the results on Wednesday’s MetroNews Talkline.
Those poll numbers come as U.S. Senate leaders continue to work on gun control legislation on Capitol Hill.
According to the survey, a total of 63% of West Virginia households have a gun compared with 41% nationally.
That is only one topic, though, covered in the wide ranging poll.
In a hypothetical matchup between Hillary Clinton and an unnamed Republican candidate for the 2016 Presidential Election, Clinton leads 39% to 30% with the rest undecided.
“We just found it to be interesting to educate some folks out there about answering that question that has been circulating in the minds of a number of people within the Democratic Party and others who had wondered, what if she had been the nominee in 2008?”
Other results from the poll of from Orion Strategies are as follows:
– 30% of respondents said they believe civil unions between homosexual couples should be legalized in West Virginia, while 62% were against it
– 27% said marijuana should be legalized
– 59% want to see the death penalty reinstated
– 55% agree with the decision from the U.S. military to allow female soldiers to serve in combat zones, 38% disagree
– 72% of the respondents are in favor of West Virginia University and Marshall University continuing the Friends of Coal Bowl
– 30% have smartphones and 42% use social media and, of those people, 77% are using it daily or more than daily
– On MTV’s Buckwild, 80% said they had heard of the reality show, of those people, 43% have watched it and 13% of those people felt that it accurately portrayed West Virginia
– 71% said they think the law that pushes back beer and wine sales on Sunday in West Virginia to after 1 p.m. should stand
Orion Strategies conducted the survey through live telephone interviews with 305 historic, likely voters in West Virginia between March 13th and 15th.
The margin of effort was 5.6%.