Arizona poll shows broad bipartisan support for national monument next to the Grand Canyon

Arizona voters overwhelmingly support the idea of designating the public lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon as a national monument, a new poll has found.

Doing so is appealing to Arizonans regardless of political affiliation, as such a designation would help protect water supplies and Native American sites from energy development and mining, according to the survey.

Three-quarters of respondents to the recent survey voiced their approval for such a designation, including 89 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of Independents and 65 percent of Republicans.

Only 12 percent said they oppose a national monument, per the survey, conducted by the Impact Research public opinion firm for the Grand Canyon Trust.

“The fact remains that across political affiliations and demographics, the support is strong and powerful for permanent protection of the Grand Canyon from uranium mining and extraction in general,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said during a Wednesday press call. 

“Added to this is the need to make sure that we continue to protect the finite resource of water, which is the Colorado River,” he added.

Grijalva, along with Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly (D) and Kyrsten Sinema (I), last month introduced a bill that would create a monument on about 1 million acres of federal lands that are today administered by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

The Grand Canyon Trust poll follows up on an April appeal to President Biden from the 12 member nations of the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition, who are advocating for the creation of the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument.

Biden is expected to spend time in Arizona next week, during a tour out West to promote his administration’s climate investments.

While the tribes are seeking to prevent development that they believe could pollute their land and water, mining companies maintain that methods of extracting uranium — which fuels nuclear power plants — have become safer in recent decades.

Nonetheless, this week’s survey results are consistent with the findings of a similar 2022 poll, which also showed that 75 percent of Arizona voters backed the idea of protecting lands outside the Grand Canyon as a national moment.

Impact Research conducted an online poll of likely 2024 general election voters in Arizona — collecting a total of 600 responses in English and Spanish from June 19-23.

Asked to assess their top-priority issues as voters, 97 percent of respondents said that protecting Arizona’s clean water supply was “very important,” including 88 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Independents and 75 percent of Republicans. 

“Voters of Arizona want and need clean water,” Carletta Tilousi, coordinator of the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition and a Havasupai Tribe member, said during the press call.

“That is exactly what the Havasupai people have been working on since I was a teenager,” Tilousi added.

Emphasizing the encouraging nature of the poll results, Tilousi expressed her hopes that the Biden administration will “listen to the voices of residents of Arizona and tribal leaders in this region.”

In addition to prioritizing water resources, poll respondents prioritized the protection of Grand Canyon lands from uranium mining over the creation of more drilling and mining jobs in the region.

Although only 49 percent of voters said that safeguarding the area from mining was “very important,” 77 percent of respondents said it was “somewhat important.”

In comparison, just 22 percent of voters deemed the creation of more drilling and mining jobs to be very important, and only 46 percent replied that this was somewhat important.

Meanwhile, some 88 percent of respondents said they “strongly support” the ability of presidents to designate existing public lands as national monuments. That total included 96 percent of Democrats, 85 percent of Independents and 84 percent of Republicans.

“The issue is a permanent protection for the people of Arizona,” Grijalva said. “I feel strongly that that is possibly one of the most important things that could happen in the next few months or so.”