The Daily Signal - #514: Purple States on the Big Issues

Episode Date: July 27, 2019

Purple states can swing either way and often end up deciding our elections. So, it's worth asking what people in those states think about the issues dominating politics. Heritage Action for America, the sister organization of The Heritage Foundation, recently carried out a wide survey of Americans in five purple states, asking them about immigration, health care, political correctness, and much more. In this episode, our editor-in-chief Kate Trinko sits down with Nate Rodgers from Heritage Action to unpack it all.We also cover the following stories:-President Trump ramps up his war of words with Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings-California shooting leaves three dead, including a 6-year-old-9/11 Victims Compensation Fund gets extended to 2092The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, July 30th. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Daniel Davis. Purple states can swing either way and often end up deciding our elections. So it's worth asking what people in those states think about the issues dominating politics. Heritage Action for America, the sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, recently carried out a wide survey of Americans in five purple states, asking them about immigration, health care, political correctness, and much more. Today, our editor-in-chief, Kate Trinko, sits down with Nate Rogers from Hair to Jackson to unpack it all. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe.

Now on to our top news. Well, President Trump is doubling down on his attacks on Congressman Elijah Cummings, calling the Maryland Democrat racist and saying he's done nothing to improve conditions in his Baltimore district. Cummings is chairman of the House Oversight Committee, which recently hosted a hearing on border conditions titled Kids in Cages. Trump initially lashed out at Cummings on Saturday, tweeting, quote, Representative Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully shouting and screaming at the great men and women of Border Patrol about conditions at the southern border, when actually his Baltimore district is far worse and more dangerous. His district is considered the worst in the USA. Trump went on to call it, quote,

a disgusting rat and rodent-infested mess, and said, quote, if he, Cummings, spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous and filthy place, end quote. While Democrats widely panned those tweets with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemning them as racist and referring to Cummings as a champion for civil rights and economic justice, Cummings himself responded, saying, quote, Mr. President, I go home to my district daily, each morning I wake up and I go and fight for my neighbors. It is my constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the executive branch, but it is my moral duty to fight for my constituents, end quote.

Well, even the Baltimore son responded to the president's words, saying, quote, better to have a few rats than to be one. But not to be outdone on Monday. The president tweeted, the fact is Baltimore can be brought back, maybe even to new heights of success and glory, but not with King Elijah and that crows. When the leaders of Baltimore want to see the city rise again, I'm in a very beautiful oval-shaped office waiting for your call.

Activist and Minister Al Sharpton is jumping on the outrage bandwagon in response to President Trump's Baltimore remarks. Here's what he had to say at a press conference on Monday. As for his attacks on me personally, Donald Trump, and I've known these other 25 years, I've marched on him with Central Park 5. I've dealt with him on the birth issue. He can say what he wants. Calls me a troublemaker? Yes, I make trouble for bigots. I made trouble for him with Central Park.

I made trouble with him for birth reason. I'm going to keep making trouble for bigots. As far as me being a con man, if he really thought I was a con man, he'd be nominating me for his cabinet. Trump responded on Twitter saying, quote, I have known Al for 25 years, went to fights with him and Don King. always got along well. He loved Trump. He would ask me for favors often. Al is a con man, a troublemaker, always looking for a score. Just doing his thing. Must have

intimidated Comcast NBC. Hates, whites, and cops. End quote. Well, a six-year-old boy was among three people killed on Sunday at a food festival in Northern California. The shooter used what's described as an AK-47-style rifle before being fatally wounded by a police officer. on the scene. President Trump responded in a press conference Monday. Deepest sadness and sorrow for the families who lost a precious loved one in the horrific shooting last night in Gilroy, California. While families were spending time together at a local festival, a wicked murderer opened fire and killed three innocent citizens, including a young child. We agree for their families, and we ask that God will comfort them with his overflowing

mercy and grace. We're praying for those who are recovering right now in the hospital, some very, very serious injuries. We thank the brave members of law enforcement. They never let us down. Who swiftly killed the shooter. We reaffirm our national will to answer violence with the courage, determination or resolve of one American family. We will continue to work together as communities and as citizens to stop evil, prevent violence, and protect the safety of all Americans. Well, police are investigating what may have led the shooter to carry out the shooting. President Trump signed a bill on Monday extending the 9-11 Victims Compensation Fund, extending the program through 2092. The bill passed.

through Congress after extensive lobbying from 9-11 survivors and comedian John Stewart. Here's what the president had to say after the signing. In the wake of the September 11th attacks, courageous Americans raced into smoke, fire, and debris in lower Manhattan, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The whole world witnessed the might and resilience of our nation in the extraordinary men and women of the New York Fire. Department and the New York Police Department, selfless patriots of unmatched character and

devotion. I grew up with them so I can tell you that's absolutely true. Well, Texas Congressman John Ratcliffe could soon become the next director of national intelligence. The president announced that the current director, Dan Coates, will soon be stepping down. Ratcliffe thanked the president over Twitter saying, quote, President Trump's call to serve in this role was not one I could ignore. and I am incredibly thankful to him for this great honor. I look forward to my new role with energy and focus, end quote. Ratcliffe has represented Texas' fourth congressional district since 2015,

serving on the House Intelligence, Judiciary, and Homeland Security Committees. As late as 2012, he was the mayor of Heath, Texas. Up next is Kate's interview with Nate Rogers on polling in purple states. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous.

Find out more at heritage.org. Joining us today is Nate Rogers, who is a senior advisor for political affairs at Heritage Action for America. Nate, thanks for joining us. Thank you. So Heritage Action just did a series of polls in the United States, sometimes focusing on purple states,

sometimes looking nationally, sometimes looking at people of a certain ideological persuasion. They talked about health care, socialism, capitalism, and much more. So, Nate, what were some of your biggest takeaways? Yeah, so this was a really interesting exercise. We entered it not looking to reach any conclusions that we had going in. We wanted to be very open in a polling process. So the Purple State poll is actually the fourth poll out of its. series of four.

So it was actually the last poll that we conducted. And the first poll we conducted was a Republican-only poll. So we wanted to see where conservatives and people who identify as Republican, where they agree, we know in the past there's been like a lot of divergence of opinion. So we wanted to see exactly where opinion kind of combines from a policy perspective. So that was the first poll. And then we did kind of a purple congressional district poll where we looked at kind of places that could go either way and have a lot of, you know, diverse folks in those districts,

ask them a similar set of questions. And then we did a national survey and then the swing state or and then the purple state survey. We wanted to get into a place where we could see what policies in, you know, the year 2020, really cut through the noise and cut through the personalities of politics. You know, a lot of the personalities and sort of tact of different characters in politics. politics, you know, really kind of take over the agenda. We wanted to see what policies really bring Americans together in different groups of Americans. So that was the endeavor and we have some interesting insights.

Okay. So your poll also got into what Americans think about capitalism and socialism. Tell me about that. Yeah. So we wanted to really get into the meat of where the sentiment is. There's been a lot of talk about, well, we shouldn't call capitalism, capitalism anymore. We should call it freedom. We should call it just like liberty and free markets.

We wanted to get beyond any of the semantic aspects of it. So we just put two statements to our survey respondents, and we asked them thinking about different forms of government, which are the following statements do you agree with most? So the first statement we put out was some people say that free market capitalism is the best form of government because it gives people the freedom to work and achieve their potential. They say it's not the government's job to pick winners and losers and that the government and that government intervention only leads to inefficiency and abuse of power. So that was one statement we put forward.

And then the other statement to choose from was other people say that socialism is a more fair and compassionate form of government. They say that corporations have too much control and that that. the capitalist system is set up to favor the rich and powerful. They say that the only way to police corporations and protect the citizens is for the government to take a larger role in managing the economy. So we wanted to be as fair as possible in those two statements. And really when describing socialism, we want to describe it in the glowing terms that the

extreme left uses all the time. So asking that 60% of our respondents said that capitalism. agreed with the capitalism statement. 60% agreed with the statement describing capitalism being a better form of government. Only 23% opted for the socialist statement. So take heart, this is something that we've really taken heart in, is that the majority is still a capitalist. The majority of Americans are still capitalists, which is great to see. So there's been a lot of talk about, you know, the left seems to have gotten much more aggressive in recent years,

both on a rhetorical level, but also in some of the policies, the Green New Deal. Representative Rashida Taleb recently called for a $20 an hour minimum wage. The House, of course, passed a $15 minimum wage. But, you know, a lot of it is just the rhetoric, the fights over almost culture war issues. What did this polling of these purple states show about what people think about where the left is going? Yeah, the left is absolutely moving in an extreme direction, or at least most voters believe that. We asked, basically, do you think that the left is pushing the Democratic Party a bit too extreme? And 50% responded in the affirmative compared to 45 that disagreed with that statement, and 43% strongly agreed.

And this was reflected across all the states we surveyed. So there's definitely a national sentiment that the left is pushing way too far. And unfortunately, for people who identify as Democrats, a majority of the, of the government, those people, people who identify as Democrats, actually support those policies and back them. So really, you know, the left is finding themselves in a difficult situation where a majority of their base is really supporting policies that are just out of step and out touch with the American people at large, or at least the voters we serve in. So I would say that during President Trump's years in office, one of the biggest fights we've

been having on a cultural level is political correctness. And yours was, I think, one of the first polls I've seen that actually asked people about that. What did you find was the attitude in these purple states toward it? This is a question that we asked in our first survey, you know, surveying people who only identify it as Republicans. And we found that even amongst very conservative folks and folks who identify as more moderate, political correctness is a huge issue. Something that, you know, a little over 70% people identify as Republicans that said was a major problem, and that was pretty striking to us. So we asked it in a national survey also. So we asked, do you think that political correctness is a major problem, a minor problem or no problem at all?

And people saying major or minor problem, 79% of the electorate at all feels that political correctness is a problem. And as I mentioned earlier, we're looking for ways for policies that will bring Americans together. And it was very interesting that the political correctness, which isn't really a policy issue, really paints everything, you know, going on. So as we're, you know, heritage action looking for policies, you know, finding, taking that knowledge of how the country feels about political correctness is really important. What do you think should be food for thought for conservatives from the polling you've done? Yeah. Basically, there are a lot of innovative policies that bring our country together. So we looked at different voters that have switched their votes in the past.

We've looked at Americans from all different backgrounds. And there are a lot of interesting policies in the area of jobs, of the economy, of culture, that do bring everyone together with significant majorities. And I think in these polarizing times, a common thought and attitude that people have is we can't agree on anything. And that's simply not the case. We have found policies in a variety of different areas that really do tie everyone together. And what are some of those policies?

Yeah. So, you know, a great policy, a great area of policy that really everyone agrees with is the idea on what the future of education should be. And starting this out, we asked folks about whether or not they believe that there are skilled labor jobs out there that don't require you to go to college, don't require you to go to require you to take on student debt and actually can end up paying you more than a job that you would have to go to college for, you know, would pay. And 72% of the people we surveyed agree with that, which is pretty impressive, you know,

compared to only 21% that disagreed. So the country at large, when this was in our Purple State survey, the country at large agrees that there are great jobs out there that don't require you to go to college. And on tying with that in our national survey, for instance, we asked, do you think the cost of a college education is worth it, basically, do you think the price of a four-year college degree is worth the price of tuition today? And 72% disagreed with that statement. So, you know, taking two different questions from two different surveys, you know, they really do tie in the same sentiment that there's a lot of issues with a, with the cost of college. And what are some solutions?

That's a common problem. Is there a common solution that people feel well? Yeah, I mean, 87% of the people we surveyed nationally believe that they would support more efforts for job training. So while there's a huge dissatisfaction with the cost of college and the rising cost of tuition, there's a huge and equally strong push for more job training options. And it's really interesting to see. So what about health care? I mean, obviously this has been an issue that's really roiled the country for at least a decade.

You know, we now have some on the left pushing for Medicare for all. What did your survey reveal about Americans' attitudes on this? Yeah. So health care is a contentious issue or it has been in the past. And it's an issue once again, you would think there would be a lot of disagreement across the country. That's just simply not the case. We asked basically, you know, Americans, do you favor or oppose doing away with all private health insurance companies and creating a government-run health care system? And we wanted to keep the language of single-payer Medicare for all these things out of it.

We just wanted to see what the sentiments were exactly. And 65% of voters opposed, you know, doing away with all private health insurance. It's 65% opposed that, 52% strongly opposed that. So there's a huge amount of opposition and only 27% favorite. So there's a large consensus on the fact that government-run healthcare is not the solution. And when it comes to, you know, if there is a problem with health care, you know, what are your problems with health care? 55%, a large majority, you know, said that health care costs them too much.

It costs a consumer too much, as opposed to only 15% of the people. that said there wasn't enough coverage or 9% that said there's not enough quality in the health care. So when you look at what problems Obamacare really looked to solve, it was a problem of access and it was a problem of quality a lot. And it's sacrifice costs. We all know that Obamacare caused insurance premiums to skyrocket. And that effect is felt a bit by Americans when they're looking at what can be fixed about the health care system, just reducing consumer costs is something that is an area that we can improve on.

So what do Americans think about taxes? I think when I was looking at this polling, one thing that jumped out at me, which I don't personally agree with this, but it seemed like it was really popular to tax the super rich. It is. This was one of the more unfortunate findings. This is one I point to when people ask you, well, did you cook the books? Did you skew the numbers?

This is certainly not a result that is ideal for myself or heritage action to find. But, yeah, 47% of Americans feel that the richest 10% of Americans are taxed much too low, which is a striking number. And then on top of that, another 16% feel their tax somewhat too low. So the leftist ideology of Occupy Wall Street and, you know, Antifa and these things of, you know, wealth-free distribution and, you know, taxing the rich, that has gotten through. That is something that has been effective in terms of convincing Americans, which is sad to see. But a lot of middle-class people still think that they and small businesses pay too much in taxes, right? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, asking a similar question, you know, do you think, how do you think the middle class is taxed?

33% said much too high. So while there's a huge, you know, while, you know, over 60% feel that the richest 10% are taxed too little, a solid 59% feel the middle class is taxed too high. And also that, you know, 57% say that small businesses are taxed too high. There is an appetite for, you know, potentially even more tax cuts for middle class Americans and small businesses, which is great to see. What about the issue of immigration? What, gosh, I mean, speak of an issue where it's hard to separate viewpoints from rhetoric. What do people actually think? Yeah.

I mean, this is one of the more polarizing issues of our time. And our, you know, polling once again, you know, did capture where the polarization is and where there is a chance for a consent. consensus and where a consensus already exists. So there is polarization about, you know, building the wall, which is not as surprised to anyone. It certainly wasn't surprising to us. We asked, do you support building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico? And it was very split within, it was a statistical tie in our national survey, which is a

bit surprising based on what we see the media reporting at large is that, you know, maybe it's just a small minority of Republicans or, you know, maybe conservatives, outspoken conservatives are the only one who's supported border. Border security, but that's just not the case. So 48% support building a wall in the U.S. border with Mexico and 49% opposed. And that's a statistical tie within our margin of error. But we see immediately where the polarization happens. And it does happen between people who live in rural areas and people who live in suburban

areas. It happens. There's a split between men and women on this issue. So it is polarizing. We pick up the polarization. But when we expand beyond the wall and we look at different other solutions to immigration, not solutions to border security, but just other issues within the umbrella of immigration.

You know, we see a lot of different things like skills-based immigration, for instance. You know, we asked if more legal, it's important to say, legal immigrants are admitted to the United States should priority be given to immigrants based on their skills or should priority be given to immigrants based on whether they already have family members in the country? And 51% of our, you know, national likely voters that we surveyed said skills, which is which is a huge number, especially compared to only the 29% that said family. And with this, really one of the only subgroups that prefer chain-based family migration over skills-based immigration are people that subscribe to a liberal ideology.

So that's an area where we do have consensus across pretty much all of our cross-tabs in subgroups, really, except for liberals. So lastly, you've obviously been working on this polling for months. Did any of the results particularly surprise you? Yeah, we had some huge surprises. One, in particular, sticking with the subject of immigration, we asked when it comes to illegal immigration, which do you think is the biggest challenge illegal immigrants pose to America? One, they take jobs from Americans.

Two, they commit violent crimes. Three, they overuse social services. Or four, they undermine American culture. And huge surprise here. 37% of the electorate said social services. And the social services we listed in the question were schools, hospitals, and welfare. So, and I've run this, I've run little, you know, impromptu focus groups on this asking this question at dinner parties and family gatherings and things. You must be a lot of fun.

I know. I try to keep things interesting with polling questions, but it does come back about the same. So we hear the president talk a ton about the crime and jobs aspect. And those are, you know, very important aspects to immigration and our important challenges that immigration. illegal immigration poses. But the social services is by and large the most popular thing. And that's probably of the four challenges we listed, that's probably the challenge the president talks least about.

So when we're working, you know, trying to come up with policies to bring Americans together, you know, this is finding something to, finding a way to help, you know, relieve social services and speak to that aspect of immigration. That's something where we bring independence into the whole. fold. We bring moderates into the fold. This is all their big, greatest concern as well. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Again, Nate Rogers of Heritage Action for America. Thank you. And full disclosure, I should note that Heritage Action is the sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, our parent organization. And that's going to do it for us today.

Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and Please leave us a review or a rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. We'll see you again tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Lauren Evans and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.