Americans Widely Oppose ‘Project 2025’ According to New UMass Amherst Poll

National Poll Also Found Significant Fear of Election and Partisan Violence

Source: UMass News and Media

With the Republican and Democratic tickets now set for this November’s presidential election and voters ready to examine the candidates’ respective platforms, a new national University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll has found that the policies associated with the Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” are deeply unpopular among Americans.

According to the poll, conducted July 29-August 1, more than half (53%) of Americans – and two-thirds of Democrats – indicated that they had read, seen or heard at least something about “Project 2025” – and they don’t particularly care for it.

“Project 2025 looks like an electoral liability, so it is no surprise that the Democratic Party has sought to link it with former President Trump and the GOP and why Trump seeks to move away from any and all association with the unpopular 900-page playbook,” says Tatishe Nteta, Provost Professor of Political Science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll. “Large majorities of Americans oppose the key pillars of Project 2025, such as the replacement of career government officials with political appointees (68% opposed), restricting a woman’s right to contraception (72% opposed) and eliminating the Department of Education (64% opposed). While our politics are usually divided by class, generational, racial, gender and partisan identities, among these groups we find strong opposition to many of the policies associated with Project 2025. Even former Trump voters exhibit opposition to many of these policies, a bad omen for the Republican Party and Trump campaign.”

“Democrats are succeeding in making the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 a major issue in the campaign and tying it to Trump,” says Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Remarkably, more than half of Americans report hearing about the report, even though such reports – issued by the Heritage Foundation since the 1980s – are usually incredibly obscure. And for the most part, Americans don’t like what they are hearing. It’s no wonder Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025, but unfortunately for him, because dozens of his former administration officials worked on the report this is going to be hard to do. Project 2025 looks like an albatross that Trump will find hard to get rid of.” 

“You don’t have to be a pollster to know that many policies in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 are unpopular among most Americans,” remarks Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Our findings simply put an exclamation point on it. You can see why the Trump campaign is running away from it during the election.”

Alexander Theodoridis, Associate Professor of Political Science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll, agrees, saying that “Project 2025 has been like manna from heaven for Democrats looking to package and label the more extreme, less popular elements of the right’s agenda for a second Trump Administration. In politics, with most voters not paying a tremendous amount of attention and retaining only surface-level knowledge, shorthand can matter in messaging. Democrats have succeeded in making ‘Project 2025’ shorthand for a right-wing, extremist agenda. Team Trump will try very hard to distance their candidate from Project 2025, but, once something has entered political parlance in this way, it is hard to unring the bell. Just ask Democrats who were labeled with GOP shorthand like ‘CRT.’”

“A major Democratic Party strategy for 2024 is mobilizing women, young people, LGBTQ+ people, people of color and civil libertarians around protecting basic rights,” Rhodes says. “In this effort, Project 2025 plays right into their hands. The Heritage Foundation’s proposed restrictions on women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and civil rights are especially unpopular among the groups the Democrats need to mobilize. Because it is a credible threat – it is, after all, backed by the major conservative interest groups and was written in part by former Trump Administration officials – it is the perfect bogeyman for Democrats looking to encourage their voters to go to the polls, contribute to campaigns and participate in voter mobilization drives.”

Nteta points to other policies that Trump has been discussing during the campaign that may offer the GOP ticket respite in the final months of the election, at least among the party’s base and possibly the general electorate, as well.

“While the policies associated with Project 2025 are unpopular with most Americans,” he says, “on the campaign trail former President Trump has gone back to the proverbial well, arguing for expanded production of oil, coal and natural gas, placing record tariffs on imported products to address the nation’s trade deficit, a ban on abortions after 16 weeks, and talking about his belief that there are only two genders determined by birth. These policies are extremely popular among Republicans, conservatives and former Trump voters, but we find that pluralities of Americans also support these policies. Whether Trump can expand his base and mobilize these voters who express support for his core policies remains to be seen, but what is clear is that Trump still has his finger on the pulse of the American public.”

Rhodes agrees, saying that “One of Trump’s greatest strengths in the 2024 campaign is the widespread perception that he is good at managing the economy. And Americans are sympathetic to ‘America First’ policies like raising tariffs on foreign goods and expanding the domestic production of fossil fuels. Arguably, Trump’s best strategy in the campaign is to present himself as a ‘normal’ candidate focused on strengthening the economy. Whether he can and will adopt this approach is another matter.”

Rhodes cautions the Trump campaign from veering into the cultural issues targeted by Project 2025, however.

“Trump and his conservative allies need to tread carefully in dealing with culture war issues,” he says. “Policies currently favored by the far right – like banning abortion and limiting access to in vitro fertilization – just aren’t popular. And while many Americans express considerable anxiety about transgender issues – with a majority now stating that they would support establishing that there are only two genders as determined by birth – efforts to do this would be ugly, divisive and, frankly, dangerous to the well-being of transgender people. The culture war fires up members of the GOP base, but over the long run these issues almost always are losers for Republicans.” 

Nteta notes that this may already be the case, at least as it pertains to Vance.

“How do you know when your own words have come back to bite you?” Nteta asks. “Since being tapped to be Donald Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio has been taken to task by Democratic elected officials and progressive media outlets for comments he made outlining his support for limiting the political power of childless American citizens. While Vance has attempted to walk back the comments, the Harris campaign has seized on the controversial comments and labeled Vance as ‘weird’ and out of step with everyday Americans. The attacks against Vance have seemingly resonated with voters as the word ‘weird’ is the second most frequently used description of Vance in our polling, only eclipsed by the word ‘unknown.’ With less than 90 days until Election Day, Vance will need to better define his vice-presidential candidacy or risk becoming a case study in regrettable vice-presidential selections.”

Immigration and the 2024 Election
The new UMass Amherst Poll once again surveyed respondents’ views on immigration, including views on the “Great Replacement Theory.”

“On the issue of immigration, Americans are attracted to both the ‘carrot’ and the ‘stick’ approaches to dealing with the nation’s influx of undocumented immigrants,” Nteta explains. “On the one hand, majorities of Americans support a path to citizenship (57%) and allowing the temporary resettlement and employment of refugees and asylum seekers (51%). However, a majority also wants to build a wall along the Southern border (50%) and a plurality (49%) supports the deportation of the nation’s undocumented immigrant population. Given the divergent positions that the Democratic and Republican candidates for president hold on this issue, the 2024 election will be a referendum on the future of immigration reform with the nation finally deciding between the carrot, or the stick.”

Rhodes agrees, saying, “Americans seem to be of two minds when it comes to immigration. On one hand, a majority of Americans favor more aggressive immigration enforcement measures, such as building a wall on the border with Mexico and using armed National Guard soldiers to enforce immigration law. On the other hand, a majority also favors a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who meet citizenship requirements and commit no crimes. And only about a third support efforts to ban immigration from Muslim-majority countries. Americans’ ambiguous and conflicted attitudes about immigration help explain why immigration policymaking is so difficult and controversial.”

However, Rhodes adds that, “When it comes to immigration issues, there are huge generational differences in attitudes. Younger Americans are much more supportive of policies that support – and even provide a citizenship path for – undocumented immigrants, while older Americans are much more likely to support strong enforcement and punitive measures against undocumented immigrants. This generational divide is likely to structure immigration policymaking for the foreseeable future.” 

Nteta adds that Trump’s rhetoric from the stump espousing some of the tenets of the Great Replacement Theory, while rallying the GOP base, may add to the difficulty of actually achieving a solution to the nation’s immigration issues.

“For years, conservative media outlets and a number of prominent Republican elected officials have been espousing the central tenets of the white supremacist doctrine known as the Great Replacement Theory, which argues that immigrants, Jewish Americans and people of color are seeking to limit the cultural, political and socioeconomic power and status of White Americans with the goal of replacing ‘real Americans’ in the nation,” Nteta explains. “The barrage of messages has paid off as large majorities of Republicans believe that the nation is losing its culture and identity due to the influx of immigrants (64%) and that elected officials are supporting immigration to bring to the nation more obedient voters who will vote for them (70%). With Donald Trump and the GOP making immigration a key issue in the 2024 election it is highly likely that these ideas will continue to circulate and adversely affect efforts to achieve a solution to the issue of undocumented immigration that reflects American values and our identity as an immigrant nation.”

“A concerning percentage of Americans endorse the troubling and dangerous views about immigrants expressed by former President Trump on the campaign trail,” Rhodes warns. “For example, 22% of Americans agree with Trump that ‘immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country,’ and 24% endorse his view that ‘many immigrants are terrorists.’ Over a third believe that elected officials increase immigration to bring in ‘obedient’ voters (39%) and that millions of these individuals vote illegally in elections (34%). We’ve found extensive support for these views before, and our new poll shows they aren’t going away. Substantial anxiety and fear about immigrants in the public explains why Trump features harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric so prominently in his campaign speeches.”

The Prospects of Electoral and Partisan Violence
Finally, the new UMass Amherst Poll also surveyed respondents about their concerns over the prospects of electoral and partsian violence in the lead-up to, and following, the upcoming election – a danger that became reality on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“Many voters believe there could be more violence against presidential candidates during the 2024 campaign,” La Raja says. “Half of them (51%) say that it is likely that Trump would be the target of another assassination. One in four (26%) say the same about an attempt on the life of Harris. We can’t discount these sentiments after the shock of what happened at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally and knowing that assassination attempts have a long history in the U.S.”

“Since the 2020 election, the nation has experienced an attempted coup on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building, a violent attack on the husband of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and, most recently, a failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump,” says Nteta. “Given this upswing in political violence, it is no surprise that close to 8 in 10 Americans express concern that there will be violence in the wake of the 2024 presidential election. Whether these respondents are soothsayers is still left to be seen, but most Americans are not optimistic that the upcoming election will be free from the possibility of violence.”

La Raja notes that the poll shows Americans’ partisan views are even impacting their views of the shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally in July.

“Partisanship affects both the views of the shooter and who respondents blame for the shooting,” he says. “For example, the media reported that the party registration of the shooter at the Trump rally was Republican. When we asked voters, many said they did not know (40%) or said Republican (42%). But when we looked only at Democrats and Republicans the outcomes were different – 57% of Democrats said the shooter was Republican compared to 31% of Republican respondents. And 25% of Republican respondents said the shooter was a Democrat compared to just 7% of Democrats.

“When asked who they think is most responsible for the attempt on Trump’s life,” La Raja continues, “Republicans are especially likely to blame it on mistakes by the Secret Service (43%) and a significant portion attribute it to the Democratic Party’s rhetoric (23%). Among Democrats, by contrast, the most common blame is Trump’s own rhetoric (38%) followed by Secret Service mistakes (19%). Independents were almost equally divided on blaming the Secret Service (18%) and Trump’s rhetoric (20%).”

“Threats, and even acts, of violence have sadly become part of politics in hyperpolarized America,” Theodoridis summarizes. “People involved at every level of our political system, from U.S. senators to poll workers, feel and are impacted by the specter of violence. Accordingly, our poll shows nearly 4 in 5 Americans concerned about violence related to the 2024 elections. This is a concern that both Republicans and Democrats share equally. They do not, however, agree on the best approaches for addressing political violence. Democrats favor stronger gun control while Republicans prefer increasing security for elected officials. Democrats and Republicans are also split on which candidate’s victory portends more political violence in the future, with each believing violence will increase if the other side wins.”

The margin of error of this poll is 3.8%.

Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll