Poll - Majority of Missouri voters thinking domestic issues

ST. LOUIS -- The economy outpaces the war on terrorism and debate about health care and education as the top issue on the minds of Missourians heading into the state's presidential primary Tuesday, a new poll shows.

A majority of the 804 likely voters surveyed Wednesday through Friday for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV also said they oppose marriage benefits for same-sex couples, though "moral issues" rank near the bottom of matters they said they would consider in the presidential race.

Thirty-one percent of respondents surveyed by Maryland-based Research 2000 tapped the economy as their primary issue.

The poll's error margin was 3.5 percentage points.

Del Ali, Research 2000's president, said the apparent focus on pocketbook issues demonstrates a gap between reports of an economic turnaround and what many people see in their budgets and their own job security.

Though 41 percent of the Missouri respondents rated the economy as "pretty good," about 48 percent rated it as "only fair."

When it comes to the war in Iraq, 56 percent of the poll's respondents said the war made the United States safer from terrorists. Thirty-one percent reported they expect an anti-American backlash, and 16 percent said they favored sending more U.S. troops.

In terms of gay marriage, more than six of 10 Missouri voters surveyed oppose extending the legal benefits to same-sex couples that are now extended to those who marry. They are narrowly divided on whether to amend the Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

A resolution seeking to put the same-sex marriage matters to a statewide vote this fall has been proposed, asking voters whether to change the Missouri Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

To Jeff Wunrow, executive director of the gay and lesbian rights group PROMO, the poll's findings aren't good news if the question is put to voters later this year.

"Well, at first blush, I have to say that they are not quite as extreme as I thought they would be," he said. That roughly one-third of the state would support marriage benefits for same-sex couples is "not the most horrible number I have ever heard."