Trump's Most Popular and Least Popular Policy Ideas
As Donald Trump prepares to give his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination at the national convention in Milwaukee, it is instructive to examine in a neutral way which of his ideas enjoy broad popular support, and which ones do not.
This past spring, The Liberal Patriot with our partners at Blueprint tested 40 different proposals from both President Biden and Democrats and from former president Trump and Republicans to assess overall levels of support and opposition for the ideas themselves—without the candidates’ names or parties associated with each one.
I went back to these data and pulled out the Trump proposals to see how well they perform with voters, both overall and by race, ethnicity, and education levels. A clear hierarchy of support emerges in terms of public backing for Trump’s policy agenda with his ideas on crime and immigration performing very well with voters, his tax and economic ideas receiving mixed support, and his foreign policy proposals getting relatively lackluster support. Notably, Trump’s decision to back Social Security and Medicare strongly—and avoid a national abortion ban—reflects strategic acumen and is clearly in line with public views on these matters.
Looking at the table above, Trump’s two most popular proposals involve crime and drugs. Sixty-nine percent of voters overall support the idea from Trump and Republicans to, "Increase funding for the police and strengthen criminal penalties for assaulting cops,” including strong majorities of non-college and college-educated voters across racial and ethnic lines. Likewise, about two-thirds of voters overall, and strong majorities of all race and education groups, support Trump’s proposal to, “Deputize the National Guard and local law enforcement to assist with rapidly removing gang members and criminals living illegally in the United States.”
On the immigration front, voter support is high for some but not all of Trump’s plans, with racial and education gaps emerging on these issues. Nearly six in ten voters overall support Trump’s most contentious idea to, “Round up undocumented immigrants, detain, and deport them to their home countries,” driven by more than two-thirds of white non-college voters. In comparison, just under half of white college voters and both groups of non-white voters back this idea. These overall support and demographic patterns are repeated on Trump’s updated promise to, “Build a full wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.”
In contrast to robust support for deportations and a border wall, less than half of voters overall support Trump’s proposals to reject refugees from Gaza and revoke visas for pro-Palestine protesters and deport them, end birthright citizenship, and reinstate a ban on immigration from Muslim-majority nations.
Turning to Trump’s tax and economic proposals, our survey finds mixed results in terms of public backing for his tax cut and tariff ideas. “Pass a large tax cut,” scores highest overall with 52 percent support and support ranging from 45 to 58 percent across racial and education groups. However, both of Trump’s tariff ideas—an across the board 10 percent tariff on all foreign imports and a steep 60 percent tariff on Chinese goods—fail to garner majority support overall but do receive majority backing from white non-college voters.
Interestingly, given other data suggesting Biden’s EV regulations are not popular, Trump’s more explicit promise to, “Repeal subsidies for clean energy and electric vehicles,” receives middling support from less than half of all racial and education groups.
One of Trump’s least popular economic ideas is reducing corporate taxes: only around four in ten voters overall support his proposal to drop the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 15 percent. (Interestingly, support for increasing the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent receives similarly tepid support suggesting that voters are fine with the current tax rate for corporations.)
At the top of the above table, you’ll also see the overwhelming support across racial and education lines for efforts to, “Protect Medicare and Social Security from funding cuts or increases in the age of eligibility,” a position supported by both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Trump’s reiteration of his commitment to these core national social insurance programs makes good sense seeing these numbers. Similarly, Trump also says he will no longer try to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was a major preoccupation of his past runs and time in government. The ACA is now firmly implanted with voters and enjoys wide favorability—including the very high level of support in this poll for permanently extending ACA protections for pre-existing conditions (71 percent).
You’ll likewise notice for comparison sake, just how popular the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy is with voters—66 percent support overall—in contrast to Trump’s ideas for cutting corporate taxes. This suggests potential difficulties he may have selling this position to the electorate, along with his plans to permanently extend the 2017 tax cuts which include significant tax reductions for higher income households.
Finally, the above table breaks down voter support for two of Trump’s leading foreign policy proposals. His pledge to, “Refuse to defend NATO members who do not meet the treaty’s military spending requirement,” is backed by only 41 percent of voters overall, with support slightly higher among white non-college voters. And Trump’s and J.D. Vance’s promise to, “Cut off aid to Ukraine,” is among the worst performing ideas in the entire poll supported by less than four in ten Americans overall with support lingering in the thirties among most racial and education groups.
We did test some of the more radical ideas from Trump’s allies to slash the federal workforce and fire thousands of FBI, national security and intelligence, and other civil service employees. These proposals also rank near the bottom of the list in terms of voter support but since Trump has distanced himself from these ideas in recent weeks they are not included here.
Heading into the final few months of the campaign with the polling wind at his back, Donald Trump can feel confident that many of his policy ideas enjoy broad public support. But support is not uniform for the Trump agenda and there is a clear rank order of ideas to stress publicly in the campaign with crime and immigration topping the list and some of his tax, economic, and security proposals in need of more explanation and more vulnerable to opposition attacks.
I’ll take a similar look at President Biden’s most and least popular ideas ahead of the DNC in Chicago in a few weeks.
This is very informative. I'm surprised by a few of these findings. Thanks for sharing
I agree that this is informative, but it would be more so if you provided more complete graphics. Specifically, what is the significance of the varying colors in each of your charts? A legend would be helpful, thanks.
Nitpicking aside, I was very surprised at the statement "Trump’s more explicit promise to, “Repeal subsidies for clean energy and electric vehicles,” receives middling support from less than half of all racial and education groups." I consider myself more educated than most, and consider those policies to be at the root of inflation. Am I wrong in this?