South Dakota Voters Express Strong Broad Support for Vaccines
89% of SD Voters Say Vaccines are Essential
to Protecting Our Health and Our Kids
SIOUX FALLS, SD (February 6, 2026) – South Dakota Families for Vaccines released the results of a poll today that shows widespread support for vaccines among likely voters. The survey conducted by co/efficient reflected that nearly nine in ten voters (89%) say vaccines are very or somewhat important, with 76% saying childhood vaccines are very important.
“This polling confirms what we already know: voters understand the role vaccines play in keeping South Dakota healthy,” said Carmen Toft, director of South Dakota Families for Vaccines. “We expect our elected officials to protect the proven public health standards our families clearly value, not weaken them.”
Respondents overwhelmingly expressed confidence in traditional vaccines. A strong majority view traditional vaccines positively, with 90% saying they are a very or somewhat good thing, and 77% believing they are completely or mostly safe.
Support for maintaining school immunization requirements is decisive, with voters favoring current standards by a 76% to 24% margin. Voters prioritize preventing rare but deadly diseases over weakening long-standing safeguards.
Voters clearly reject non-medical exemptions, with nearly six in ten (59%) viewing them as a direct risk to children rather than an issue of parental rights. This finding reflects broad public understanding that strong vaccine requirements are essential to protecting kids, families, and community health.
The poll also shows strong agreement that vaccination is a shared responsibility. Nearly three-fourths (72%) believe individuals have a responsibility to protect public health, even when balanced against personal freedom considerations. Despite this clear public opinion, the House Health and Human Services Committee passed HB 1153 out of committee on Thursday with a floor debate likely next week.
The poll was conducted January 22-26, 2026 by the research and analytics company co/efficient. It surveyed 1414 likely general election voters and has a margin of error of +/-3.45%.
Vaccine Day of Advocacy
The poll’s findings come as South Dakota Families for Vaccines prepares to bring advocates and health care leaders to the Capitol for Vaccine Day of Advocacy on Thursday, February 12, in Pierre. SDFV will be joined by partners including Immunize South Dakota, the South Dakota State Medical Association, the South Dakota Public Health Association, and the South Dakota chapters of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Together, advocates will meet with lawmakers to share data, personal stories, and a clear message from voters: protecting public health and maintaining strong vaccine standards matters to South Dakota families.
About South Dakota Families for Vaccines
South Dakota Families for Vaccines is a volunteer-driven, grassroots network of South Dakotans dedicated to advocating for public health rooted in fact-based public policy and promoting immunizations across the lifespan for healthier families and communities. For more information visit www.sdfamiliesforvaccines.org.
You listening Toby?
Listening to “South Dakota Families for Vaccines”? I’m neutral on vaccines but to take this poll serious is laughable.
To be neutral on vaccine effectiveness is also laughable. You’re only able to be neutral thanks to vaccines existing.
Toby no hear.
Toby no read.
Toby Talk.
TOTAL lack of detail. Just had a conversation about this tonight with highly educated people. Final verdict: Get the shingles vax.
I do have a problem with the poll as I received a call a while back (now trying to remember the actual date, need to go through my phone log) asking me about my personal vaccination history and plans, not my opinions, and what my personal physician has recommended. I was asked about different vaccines and whether or not my personal physician has recommended them and if I have received them or plan to.
I had to explain that my personal physician is an immunologist who has me on weekly IgG injections because of my inability to produce antibodies. I am a “poor responder” to vaccines. This means sure, I can get vaccinated with everything but what is the point? I am dependent on other people’s antibodies. I certainly hope the plasma donors I get them from are vaccinated!
Consequently my physician isn’t recommending vaccination but he isn’t advising against it.
I might have been scored in that poll as being opposed to vaccination, but I am an outlier.
Holy crap on a cracker, you actually complete those polls? Why????
wasn’t interested in what was on TV at the time
They report broad support for medical and religious exemptions, but did the respondents know that (1) none of the major religious sects are opposed to vaccinations and (2) medical exemptions do not require verification from a licensed medical provider? This opens the schoolhouse doors to the children of ignoramuses who get their information from the internet.
Until all the accredited schools and licensed child care providers simply refuse to admit unvaccinated children, the taxpayers will be paying the bills to care for people who are permanently disabled by preventable diseases like polio and measles.
Many people of faith disagree with institutional religious organizations on any number of things. A church entity does not determine whether or not my faith-based beliefs are valid.
in other words, you can make up your own religion and use it as an excuse to take a giraffe on a commercial flight.
Nope, there’s been way too much of this nonsense. Get yourself and your kids vaccinated or stay home.
Ours is a family of four generations on medical doctors (5th generation in the process). We are thoroughly educated in the sciences. Fully understanding the life saving benefits of vaccines, we, adults & children, have received every vaccine available to ward off disease. To deny the efficacy of medically researched vaccines, is to deny science. Conspiracy theorists are a danger to society!
Science is a theory. Believed to be true, until proven otherwise. Highly educated in theories is a danger to society. Renner Coke? There was once a scientific theory that the earth was flat. Science was used to try to warm the earth’s atmosphere by placing coal on the surface. GGma lived to 99. No vaccinations.
And here comes some idiot taking his anecdotal evidence of his unvaxed grandma living to 99. Educated humans have known since the Ancient Greeks that the Earth was not flat, only fools ever did.
Science is not a theory. Science is a method. The fact someome came up with a theory that was later proven to be false shows THE METHOD was working correctly. You have no idea what you are talking about.
And my grandmother lived to be 94, but 3 of her 5 siblings died of diptheria before the age of ten.
So your grandma beat the odds, just as mine did. In fact, ALL of us are descended from the less than 50% of children who lived past the age of ten, in the centuries before vaccines and antibiotics.
The reason the baby boomers are such a large generation isn’t because their parents had more children than previous generations did, it’s because we were the first generation to survive childhood in massive numbers.
My grandmother’s sister died of the flu at 4 months during the Spanish flu pandemic. Trump’s grandfather died of the flu during that time as well.
There was a meme going around several years ago about how a child whose parent has died is called an orphan, a person whose spouse has died is called a widow(er), but there is no word for a parent whose child has died.
That is because the word “parent” usually covered it.