Would America Elect another Reagan?

September 23, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty 

Even though Trumpies and establishment Republicans don’t like each other, they both have the same reaction when I share my right-of-center Venn Diagram.

They say that the American people would not support a modern-day version of Ronald Reagan. They either explicitly or implicitly believe that Reagan’s libertarianish vision would not attract enough support to win a national election.

I certainly hope that’s not the case, and today I’m going to share some polling data showing that the American people still have views that make them sympathetic to a candidate who believes in limited government and free markets.

We’ll start with these results from a new poll from NBC. It shows capitalism with a +26 favorability rating while socialism has a -37 favorability rating.

These results are especially encouraging since “capitalism” generally does not poll as well as terms like “free market” or “free enterprise.”

And it also may be that the failed policies of the Biden-Harris Administration have led to s shift in favor of economic liberty.

Now let’s look at some polling data from Pew Research about trust in government. It’s not as low as it should be, but only about 20 percent of respondents have any degree of faith in government to do what is right.

Makes me wonder if people have been reading my columns about  “great moments in government“?

If so, they obviously would know that even sushi from a gas station is more trustworthy than government.

Let’s now conclude with three charts from Gallup.

We’ll start with fresh polling data showing people have negative views of the federal government.

And polling data from last year show that people also recognize that Washington has too much power.

They didn’t get updated results on this question, either, but it’s nonetheless very encouraging that there are a lot more people who want less spending and lower taxes compared to those who want more spending and higher taxes.

P.S. When I discuss polling data, people sometimes respond by saying that people are inconsistent. They say they want smaller government, but they also say they want various goodies from Washington. I certainly agree that some people lack coherent views, but I also think that this inconsistently can be partially explained by looking at what happens when people are asked if they favor government goodies that they would have to pay for.

P.P.S. Since we started today’s column by asking whether a modern-day Reagan could win the White House, I can’t resist linking to this 2013 poll and this 2021 poll.