Poll: Abortion, recreational pot measures have majority support, but just 1 has enough backing to pass

Amendment 3 and Amendment 4, which respectively would legalize recreational pot and protect abortion access in the Florida Constitution, both carry majority support among likely Florida voters, new polling shows.

But only the abortion measure has enough backing now to pass on Nov. 5.

Amendment 4, which would prohibit government intervention in abortion procedures before viability or when necessary to protect the mother’s health, has 61% support, pollsters found. That’s 1 percentage point above the 60% supermajority necessary for the measure to succeed.

Meanwhile, Amendment 3, which among other things would decriminalize the possession of up to 3 ounces of pot for adults 21 and older, has 58% support — 2 points shy of the threshold.

Jacksonville-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy interviewed 625 likely voters by phone Oct. 1-4 on behalf of NBC 6 and Telemundo 51. The firm randomly selected whom it called from a phone-matched Florida voter registry and assigned quotas to voter turnout by county.

A majority of respondents from all age groups, all Florida regions, both sexes and three ethnic groups pollsters stratified for are behind both proposals. Only one group, Republicans, oppose Amendment 4 more than they support it.

Amendment 3

A larger share of women (61%) is for Amendment 3 than men (56%). In both gender groups, 7% are undecided.

Voters under 50 support recreational cannabis by a wider margin (64%-29%) than those older than them (55%-39%).

Hispanic voters are most split on the issue, with 52% supporting legalization and 43% against it. The issue leads by 28 points among Black voters (65%-37%) and by 25 points among White voters (59%-34%).

Democrats most support the measure (72%-21%), followed by independents (54%-38%) and Republicans (49%-45%).

Accordingly, Amendment 3 is most popular in the Southeast, where it carries 62% support compared to 30% opposition. It’s polling weakest in North Florida, where 53% of voters are for it and 41% are against it.

Amendment 4

Women are more than twice as likely (66%-28%) to support Amendment 4 than oppose it. Men are less keen on the proposal, with 57% supporting it and 37% opposing it. Equal shares of both sexes (6%) are still on the fence about the issue.

Under-50 voters are slightly more likely to vote “yes” on the measure (62%-32%) than their older neighbors (60%-33%).

Black voters, more than any of the three ethnic groups Mason-Dixon denoted, support Amendment 4, with 84% saying they’ll surely vote for it compared to 59% of White voters and 54% of Hispanic voters.

The measure is polling best among Democrats, of whom 89% are for enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution. Fifty-nine percent of independents are with them, while just 39% of Republicans said the same.

The poll had a 4-percentage-point margin of error and 95% accuracy. Subgroups, such as gender or age, had higher margins of error.

Mason-Dixon’s numbers come two weeks after a Victory Insights survey showed neither Amendment 3 nor Amendment 4 had enough support to pass, but that there was a large enough share of undecided voters who could still make it happen.

For Amendment 3, Victory pollsters found that 17% of voters were uncommitted at the end of September, while more than 1 in 5 voters had yet to choose a side on Amendment 4. The new figures from Mason-Dixon show the share of undecideds for both are now down to single digits.