With the 2024 legislative session just weeks away Campaign for Vermont commissioned a statewide public opinion poll looking at a number of contested policy differences between the Legislature and the Governor to see what Vermonters actually think. The results surprised us.

The majority of Vermonters (53%) believe the state is on the wrong track and appear to blame the Legislature (51% disapproval) over the Governor (30% disapproval) for this trajectory. Cost of living, affordable housing, and public safety were the issues top of mind for most people. Vermonters shared highly negative views about the current state of critical government responsibilities such as infrastructure, affordable housing, public education, and the economy.

While people supported the Paris Climate Accord target of carbon neutrality by 2050, they were largely unwilling to increase taxes or fees to pay for it. Two-thirds opposed the concept of a Clean Heat Standard that the Legislature passed this year and there was nearly universal agreement that such a tax on transportation fuels would be regressive (disproportionately impacting low and middle-income families). While people are still supportive of subsidies to switch to cleaner technologies (as long as existing revenues are used), they strongly prefer (72%) the state focus instead on combating climate change by making our communities more resilient to its effects.

Other Legislative initiatives, including the new payroll tax to expand childcare subsidies to the upper middle class, did not hold up well to public opinion. The last-minute effort to double legislative pay was also highly unpopular with two-thirds of respondents saying that they would be much less likely to vote for a legislator who supported such a measure. Interestingly, an entirely new concept, a taxpayer bill of rights, found purchase with respondents.

See our other posts for more detailed analysis:

• Part 1: Opinions on Governor, Legislature, and direction of VT
• Part 2: Top issues Vermonters care about
• Part 3: What climate change policies Vermonters support
• Part 4: Public safety, childcare, and legislative pay

Help us do more work like this by becoming a Supporting Partner

Updated 12/19/2023 @ 8:26am