Poll: Majority Still Want GITMO to Stay Open

When President Obama made run for the White House the first time around in 2008, he campaigned on the promise he'd close Guantanamo Bay prison. That promise hasn't necessarily been kept, but earlier this month we saw the administration make what could be the first of many moves to empty GITMO by default through prisoner swaps and by sending enemy combatants through the U.S. court system instead of through military tribunals.

But despite President Obama's militant ideology surrounding the closing of the prison, new polling shows a majority still want the facility to remain open.

The poll finds a majority continues to want the military prison to stay open, yet support is down. Last year, 63 percent of voters wanted to keep Gitmo open (May 2013). That stands at 52 percent today.

Veterans think Gitmo should be kept open by an almost 2-to-1 margin (63-32 percent). And that’s mostly unchanged from how they felt last year (69-25 percent).