Boston Area’s Support Still Low for 2024 Summer Olympics Bid, Poll Shows – Wall Street Journal

BOSTON—Public backing for hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics here has improved slightly but remains low, a poll released Thursday shows, despite a threat that weak support could imperil the bid.

The poll from local National Public Radio affiliate WBUR found 40% of about 500 Boston-area voters support hosting the Olympic Games, while 50% are against it. In March, just 36% of voters were in favor. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

“The bleeding seems to have stopped,” said Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group, which conducted the poll.

Support is still below the 51% level notched in January, when the U.S. Olympic Committee named Boston to represent the nation in the international competition to host the Games, picking the city over Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington.

Local enthusiasm is considered critical to Boston’s chances: The International Olympic Committee, which will pick a winner in 2017, takes public opinion into account. Other potential 2024 candidates include Hamburg, Germany; Rome; Paris and South Africa.

People familiar with the USOC’s plans told The Wall Street Journal after the March poll that the group could drop Boston’s bid if local support doesn’t improve. USOC Chief Executive Scott Blackmun has said the group, which will conduct its own independent polling in the next few months, isn’t considering replacing Boston.

“We’re obviously pleased that the more people learn about this extraordinary opportunity, the more they seem inclined to support the bid,” USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said of the latest poll numbers. “We’ll continue to work with our partners at Boston 2024 and the city of Boston to engage residents and successfully answer the public’s legitimate questions.”

Boston 2024, the local group promoting the city’s bid, said public support is vital. “We are confident that as the conversation continues in the coming months about the benefits of hosting the Olympics in 2024, more residents of Boston and the Commonwealth will welcome this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” the group said in a statement.

In a reversal, Boston 2024 recently said it would back a statewide referendum in November 2016 on whether to host the Games. The group said it wouldn’t move ahead if a majority of state voters or Boston voters reject the idea.

Opponents of the Olympics in Boston are concerned about potential cost overruns and the possibility that preparing for the Games will divert attention away from other priorities, such as affordable housing. There are also worries about whether the city’s fragile transit system can handle the Olympics following record-breaking snowfall this winter that badly hobbled train service, although groups against hosting say opposition to the Games runs deeper than that.

“This most recent round of polling makes it clear that Bostonians’ opposition to the bid wasn’t about our collective grumpiness during a rough winter,” said Chris Dempsey, co-chairman of the opposition group No Boston Olympics.

Boston 2024 has said the Olympics could be a catalyst for necessary transit upgrades. The group has been meeting with residents around the state in a series of public meetings.

The USOC has been trying to bring the Summer Games back to the U.S. for the first time since the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Write to Jon Kamp at jon.kamp@wsj.com