By Daniel Stefanski |

Maricopa County voters appear to be locked in with their support of a sales tax renewal for the November General Election.

Earlier this month, Noble Predictive Insights (NPI) released a poll to show that Maricopa County voters were overwhelmingly in support of Proposition 479.

Proposition 479 is a result of SB 1102, which was passed in 2023, requiring “that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors call a countywide election for the continuation of the county transportation tax at least two years before the expiration of the tax, and shall conduct that election on a consolidated election date no less than one year before the expiration of the tax.”

The official title of the measure is the “Regional Strategic Transportation Infrastructure Investment Plan.”

If passed by Maricopa County voters, the revenues would be allocated in the following manner: “(a) 40.5 percent to freeways and other routes in the state highway system; (b) 37 percent to public transportation; and (c) 22.5 percent to arterial streets, intersection improvements and regional transportation infrastructure.”

According to the September survey released from NPI, Proposition 479 had 64 percent support from voters in August, compared to 18 percent opposition. Nineteen percent of voters were undecided about the question at hand.

The numbers for Proposition 479 are largely unchanged from two previous polls, dating back to July 2023. Opposition to the measure has only increased by a single percentage point since July 2023, while support has increased by eight percent during that same time frame.

“Maricopa County voters have had their minds made up for a year on this proposition – campaigns for it have clearly worked, and Prop 479 is on the fast track to victory in November,” said Mike Noble, NPI Founder & CEO.

After the Arizona Legislature passed a compromise for this proposal in July 2023, Republican Senate President Warren Petersen claimed victory, calling SB 1102 “the most conservative transportation plan in our state’s history.” He added, “The guardrails, taxpayer protections and funding allocations in the text of this bill reflect the priorities of voters, to reinvest their tax dollars in the transportation modes they use most.”

Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs, who signed the compromise, was diplomatic in her statement, saying, “Today, bipartisan leaders invested in the future of Arizona families, businesses, and communities. The passage of the Prop 400 ballot measure will secure the economic future of our state and create hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs for Arizonans. I am glad we were able to put politics aside and do what is right for Arizona.”

Members of the Arizona Freedom Caucus were adamantly opposed to the bill as it was released and approved. After the Prop 400 plan passed through the Arizona Legislature, the Freedom Caucus tweeted, “Legislative conservatives near unanimously opposed this horrible bill. Conservative watchdog groups unanimously opposed it. The bill may have been better than the communists at @MAGregion’s horrific plan, but that’s a ludicrously low bar for success. This bill was antithetical to conservatism.”

The breakthrough on the Prop 400 compromise between Republicans and Democrats in Arizona’s divided government took place after Governor Hobbs vetoed a Republican proposal earlier that summer. At that time, Hobbs stated, “I just vetoed the partisan Prop 400 bill that fails to adequately support Arizona’s economic growth and does nothing to attract new business or create good-paying jobs.”

In May 2023, the governor had created unrest over ongoing negotiations, allegedly sending out a tweet that highlighted her fight with Republicans at the Legislature at the same time she was meeting with Senate President Warren Petersen.

Petersen stressed the importance of the agreed-upon bill, asserting that officials had “secured a good, responsible product for the citizens of Arizona to consider in 2024, giving voters the option to enhance critical infrastructure that our entire state relies upon.”

This NPI poll took place between August 12-16 with just over 1,000 registered Arizona voters, including 595 individuals in Maricopa County.

Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.