Key Finding 8: Many progressive policies dismissed as extreme are more popular than imagined

Other progressive left policies that are waved away as radical by the pundit class are not considered as such by the general public. For instance, we polled a proposal to allow all Americans to start a bank account with the Federal Reserve. A plurality of voters took no position (46 percent didn’t know), but among those who did, the proposal had net support (+4 points). We find that a universal basic wealth plan (also called a baby bond) has net +2 support (40 percent in favor, 38 percent opposed). These policies are not as overwhelmingly popular as the others, but they would offer significant benefits without clearly risking electoral backlash.

We found that some of our left policies are unpopular on net, but not dramatically so. A universal basic income, even with a question wording that specified paying for the plan by increasing taxes, is only net -2. There is also only a net -2 (32 percent in favor, 34 percent opposed) opposition to instituting a 90 percent marginal tax rate on income over a million dollars. Even a policy as controversial as reparations has net positive support among voters under 45, though nationally it has net negative of 21 percentage points among the general public (26 percent in favor, 47 percent opposed).

Regardless of how popular or unpopular a policy is, we should remember that public opinion is inherently fluid. We did not provide partisan cues in our question wording and many of these issues have not seen sustained partisan debate, so many of these items are measuring people’s gut reactions to them. This is encouraging, in that it shows that people on average seem to intuitively see merit in progressive goals and proposals for how to achieve them. However, turning these favorable impressions into durable support will require activists and politicians to put these issues on the national agenda and make a forceful case for them over time.

Key Finding 9: The least popular progressive policies are more popular than Republicans’ signature legislative proposals. By a lot.

It’s important to keep some perspective here. According to the Real Clear Politics average, the Republican tax cut currently stands at net -7 percent approval. Data from the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that their failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act polled at net -24 (meaning that the Republican healthcare bill is less popular than reparations). Six -- six! -- percent of the public supports cutting Social Security, according to the American National Election Studies. We did not find universal support for every progressive agenda item we polled -- nor did we expect to. However, we consistently found that voters are more likely to want big-ticket progressive agenda items that are dismissed by the pundit class as electoral doom than policies that Republican candidates regularly commit to on the campaign trail and pursue while in office.

Key Finding 10: You tell us!

You can analyze our data yourself using the tool below. To create cross-tabulations, simply click the “by” in the top right corner. All question wordings appear below the data analysis tool. You can toggle whether the data appears as a chart or a cross-tabulation and the decimal points displayed. All data are weighted to be nationally representative of American adults.

Thanks to John Ray (@johnlray) of YouGov Blue for the vizualization box.

Hit us up at @DataProgress.