Americans split on filibuster reform: survey

Americans are split on whether to keep or eliminate the Senate filibuster, with the remainder expressing no opinion on the legislative tactic meant to prevent a measure from being brought to a vote, according to a Monmouth University poll released on Thursday.

Monmouth’s poll found that 34 percent of Americans approve of the filibuster, while 34 percent disapproved and 33 percent had no opinion on the matter.

President Biden has signaled that he is open to making changes to the legislative filibuster if it continues to be a roadblock in passing key agenda items in an evenly split chamber.

But that proposal faces opposition from moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), who have made it clear that they oppose completely getting rid of the filibuster.

Other senators, including Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), has been wary of doing away with the filibuster.

Among those who said they disapproved of the filibuster, 50 percent said they wanted to get rid of it entirely, while 46 percent want to keep it with reforms. 

Nearly half of those surveyed said they would leave in place the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster.

Yet only 19 percent of those surveyed said they were very familiar with how the filibuster works, while 40 percent said they’re somewhat familiar. More than 10 percent are not too familiar with how it works, and 2 percent are not familiar with it at all.

Meanwhile, 29 percent had not heard of the filibuster at all.

Monmouth University surveyed 800 adults by telephone April 8-12. The survey has a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points.