Take a look at the three polls released on the topic in 2021:
- A CBS News poll found 58% of Americans thought marijuana should be legal.
- A Pew Research Center poll showed that 60% of Americans wanted recreational marijuana to be legal.
- A Quinnipiac University poll indicated that 69% of Americans and 70% of voters nationwide believed marijuana should be legal.
Whats notable in both the Pew and Quinnipiac polls is that a lot of Republicans are for legalizing. In the Pew poll, 47% were for it, compared with 52% against it. In the Quinnipiac poll, 62% were for it, compared with 32% who were against it. (The CBS poll didn't make a breakdown by party available.)
Interestingly, marijuana actually has one of the smaller partisan splits of any major issue. The average of the Quinnipiac and Pew polls showed that Democrats were only 21 points more likely to be in favor of backing legalization.
For comparison, keeping abortion legal had a 54-point split between Democrats (76% in favor) and Republicans (22% in favor) in a May Quinnipiac poll.
This shouldnt be too surprising when looking at the success of marijuana ballot measures nationwide.
Last year, legalizing recreational marijuana passed comfortably in the blue state of New Jersey (67%), the purple state of Arizona and the deeply red states of Montana (57%) and South Dakota (54%). Former President Donald Trump lost New Jersey by 16 points and won South Dakota by 26 points.