Majority
of Sacramentans want U.S. troops
withdrawn from Iraq
Two-thirds
of Sacramento residents want American troops withdrawn from Iraq, and most are
pessimistic about Iraq and President Bush’s war policies, according to
the 2007 Sacramento State Annual Survey of the Region.
Fully 69 percent of Sacramento
region residents are opposed to the war in Iraq. Compared to other Americans,
area residents are less likely to support the war. A recent survey showed 37
percent of Americans think it was worth going to war, compared to 26 percent
in the Sacramento region.
About two-thirds (65 percent)
of Sacramento region residents want a timetable established to withdraw troops
from Iraq, and 28 percent want to keep the troops there.
The survey, conducted by
Sacramento State Professor Amy Liu and her students through the University’s
Institute for Social Research, found that the largest division in opinions on
the war in the region was found among registered voters. More than half of Republican
voters—55 percent—believe it is worth going to war, while 88 percent
of Democrats and 76 percent of other voters hold the opposing view.
And as the war continues,
area residents have become increasingly pessimistic about the United States’
future in Iraq. Only 20 percent of Sacramento region residents remain optimistic.
Additionally, the disapproval rate for President Bush’s handling of the
situation in Iraq has reached 73 percent, an all-time high in the survey’s
history, and more than two-thirds (69 percent) oppose the President’s
plan to send 22,000 additional forces to Iraq.
Other findings
include:
Over the years,
Sacramento residents increasingly think the U.S. situation in Iraq is getting
worse. Only 14 percent thought it was getting worse in 2004; 17 percent in
2005; 26 percent in 2006; and 36 percent in 2007.
Residents in
Yolo (47 percent) and Sacramento (37 percent) counties are more likely to
feel pessimistic about the future in Iraq than residents from El Dorado (29
percent) and Placer (30 percent) counties.
People whose
households earn less than $50,000 annually (76 percent) and females (75 percent)
tend to have a higher disapproval rating of Bush’s war policies than
those who earn more than $50,000 a year (72 percent) and males (69 percent).
An overwhelming
majority of Democrats (83 percent) and other voters (67 percent) support setting
a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq, while more than half of Republicans
(53 percent) want to keep the troops there until America achieves its goals,
regardless of how long that takes.
The survey was a computer-assisted
telephone interview of 1,106 randomly selected adults from Sacramento, Yolo,
Placer and El Dorado counties. It has a margin of error of 3 percent.
