How Blue State Voters Compare to Red State Voters Part 1: California Voters’ Views vs. The Nation

Americas Majority Foundation conducted a series of polls including two national polls on voters’ views post 2016 elections. The issues we reviewed included asking voters if they felt increasing government spending and deficits would help or hurt the economy and their economic prospects, does growth in the private sector also aid in in their economic prosperity, and should politicians emphasize job creation and economic growth.

This past July, we asked voters in California’s 43rd District similar questions and wondered how voters represented by one of the leading leftist in America, Maxine Waters, compared to voters nationwide after the 2016 elections as well as voters in three states carried by Donald Trump: Missouri, Montana and Wisconsin,

Americas Majority Foundation used two separate polling companies to handle the national polls, Voice Broadcasting and Cyngal. We used Voice Broadcasting to poll California’s 43rd District along with polling the individual states.

In our post-election polls, we found that the majority of voters, regardless of party, viewed increasing government spending as hurting the economy. Cyngal pollsters found that only 8% of Republicans, 26.5% of Democrats and 17% of Independents viewed increasing government spending as helping the economy and Voice Broadcasting found that 7% of Republicans, 26.5% of Voice Broadcasting and 14% of Independents viewed government spending as helping the economy.

In the 43rd District, 16% of Republicans, 37% of Democrats and 24% of Independents viewed increased government spending as helping the economy. 67% of Republicans and 48% of Independents told pollsters that increasing government spending and deficits hurt the overall economy and their opportunity to succeed whereas only 32% of Democrats agreed with Republicans and independents on this. The plurality of voters (46%) viewed government spending as hurting the economy compared to 26.5% saying that it helps. Voters in this district are less likely to view increasing government spending as hurting the economy compared to national polls of voters but they still view Keynesian economic theories with suspicion.

When asked if government policies should emphasize economic growth over inequality, voters in our nationwide poll preferred policies emphasizing economic growth over dealing with inequality between the 1% and the rest of the nation. This was true among voters in the 43rd District where 67% of Republicans, 59% Democrats and 48% of Independents favored policies that stressed economic growth and job creations over dealing with inequality. While more Republicans and Independents favored economic growth in our national polls compared to Republicans and Independents in the 43rd District, the number of Democrats voters in 43rd district were similar in both national polls (54% in the Cyngal poll and 57% in the Voice Broadcasting poll). Overall, voters are more interested in growing their opportunity to succeed as opposed to engaging in the politics of envy.

We asked voters if they believe that increasing the growth of the private sector helps their chance of success. Our voters in the 43rd district understand that increasing the private sector increases their chance of moving up the economic ladder. 66% Republicans along with 44% Democrats and 54% of Independents agree with this statement whereas only 9% of Republicans, 26% Democrats and 17% Independents disagreed that increasing private sector growth helps them economically.

Republicans and Independents in our nation polls were more supportive than Republicans and Independents in the 43rd district but not by much as Cyngal polls had 70% Republicans and 61% Independents viewing private sector growth as helping Americans moving up and Voice Broadcasting had 76% Republicans and 65% Independents viewing growth of private sector helping overall prosperity compared to 66% Republicans and 54% of Independents in California 43rd District. 57% Democrats as reported by Cyngal and 48% as reported by Voice Broadcasting polls compared to 44% Democrats in the 43rd district view increasing private sector growth as beneficial.

The 43rd District voters showed that even in one of the most liberal district free market ideas are more popular than imagined with Democrats outnumbering Republicans 4 to 1 in party registration and with minorities representing 80% of the district.