The first independent survey of local residents to gauge their feelings about the bid found 88 percent support the effort. That number exceeds even the 81 percent support the LA 2024 bid committee has touted in its bid materials, surprising the researchers who conducted the poll.
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Loyola Marymount University researcher Brianne Gilbert told KPCC public radio — one of the poll’s sponsors — that the strong across-the-board response was extraordinary.
“I’ve never seen that in any survey I’ve done,” Gilbert said. “There was no demographic or geographic group that had less than 80 percent support for the Olympics.”
Overall, the telephone poll of 2,425 Los Angeles County residents found 56 percent were “strongly supportive” while 32 percent were “somewhat supportive.”
Those numbers are particularly significant in light of the backlash against Olympic bids in cities around the world. Significant local opposition prompted Boston, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s initial choice to carry the 2024 flag, to drop out in favor of Los Angeles. Hamburg officially submitted a 2024 bid to the International Olympic Committee last September but withdrew after 51.6 percent of voters opposed a bid in a November referendum.
That left Los Angeles, Paris, Rome and Budapest as the remaining candidates, with the IOC set to select the winner in September 2017.
