In this election year, it’s clear the environment is important to Wyoming voters, according to a recent annual poll.

Almost 90% of all respondents in the Cowboy State believe issues involving public lands, waters, and wildlife are important in deciding whether to support an elected public official, according to the long-running State of the Rockies poll by Colorado College. In fact, 95% of Wyoming respondents said they believe themselves to be conservationists, with 75% of those believing they are strong in their conservation convictions.

Narrowing it down, 61% prefer that leaders place more emphasis on protecting water, air, wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities over maximizing the amount of land available for drilling and mining; and 73% believe removing Clean Water Act protections from smaller streams and seasonal wetlands will have a negative impact and 89% of respondents believe existing national monument designations for some public lands protected over the last decade should be kept in place. Six in 10 respondents believe rolling back Endangered Species Act protections for plants and wildlife at danger of becoming extinct will have a negative impact.

Of those responding, about 66% consider themselves both anglers and hunters and 12 times as many respondents said they strongly oppose the sale of federal public lands versus those who support sales of public land.

Most of those responding in Wyoming consider themselves politically conservative, the highest percentage of the seven states in the Rocky Mountain range. And far fewer respondents in the state consider themselves as liberal in their political views; about half as many as respondents in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. Only Utah is close to the level of Wyoming respondents committing themselves to conservative politics, however, all seven states show a majority of respondents are conservative in nature; 35% of them identifying as supporters of the Make America Great Again movement.

The mission statement of the State of the Rockies Project is to enhance understanding of and action to address socio-environmental challenges in the Rocky Mountain West through collaborative student-faculty research, education, and stakeholder engagement. All of those polled are registered voters with 52% being men and 48% women, however, more women responded in Wyoming than men.

Wyoming has significantly fewer respondents who think there is too much partisanship and division in politics, with more than twice as many Wyomingites as other states polled responding that partisanship and division isn’t a problem (the majority).

The project is now in its 15th year. For more information: coloradocollege.edu/other/stateoftherockies