This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
Marylanders have a more favorable view of socialism than of President Trump’s job performance, according to polling data from Goucher College.
About 27% of those reached by the most recent Goucher Poll approved of Trump’s job as president. Thirty-one percent said they have a generally favorable view of socialism. A larger group — 53% of those polled — view capitalism favorably.
A heap of people and groups registered more highly than Trump in the poll, which was conducted Sept. 13-18 and reached 763 Maryland adults.
President Obama and his signature policy achievement, the Affordable Care Act, were viewed most favorably. About 73% of those polled viewed Obama favorably and 63% held a favorable view of Obamacare.
Organized politics fared worse. Only about 47% of those polled held a favorable view of the Democratic Party, and 33% held a favorable view of the Republican Party.
About 53% of registered voters polled were Democrats, about 26% were Republicans, nearly mirroring the state’s overall voting-age population.
Additionally, more than half of Marylanders — 56% — said they are unsatisfied with the way democracy is working in America. Thirty-one percent said they were satisfied, and 5% said they were very satisfied with the way democracy is working.
Democrats (64%) were more likely to be dissatisfied than Republicans (37%).
The race for the White House has attracted attention from most of the 655 registered voters polled.
About 35% said they were paying “a lot” of attention to the 2020 campaign for president. Twenty-six percent said they were paying some attention and 22% are paying “a little” attention.
Unsurprisingly in Democrat-heavy Maryland, 65% of registered voters who are paying at least a little attention to the 2020 campaign said they plan to definitely or probably vote for a Democratic candidate. Twenty-eight percent said they definitely or probably will vote for Trump.
The poll also asked Maryland residents how they feel about some of the biggest topics in national politics.
CLIMATE
More Marylanders now think that climate change is caused primarily by human activity. About 69% believe so, compared to 59% when the question was last asked by the poll in September 2017. Only 1% of those polled said they believe climate change does not exist; 23% said climate change is mostly caused by natural patterns in the earth’s environment.
These attitudes fell starkly along partisan lines; 76% of Democrats said they believe climate change is caused mostly by human activity, compared to 44% of Republicans.
IMMIGRATION
The poll presented residents with two statements about America’s openness to the world and asked them to choose which comes closer to their views:
Seventy-one percent supported the statement: “America’s openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation.”
Twenty-four percent supported the statement: “If America is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.”
Compared to a Pew Research Center poll in July 2019, Marylanders are more likely than all Americans (62%) to say that openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation.
MEDICARE
An experimental question found that support for “Medicare for All” proposals varies based on how such plans are defined. Marylanders are less likely to support such a plan when it is described as replacing private insurance. With randomly rotated questions, about 59% said they would support a “Medicare for All” health care system “where all Americans get their health insurance from the government.”
That number dropped to 52% when pollsters asked if they would support a “Medicare for All” system “where all Americans would get their health insurance from the government, replacing private insurance plans.”
