The majority of likely voters favors a free market system over socialism, a poll from the conservative Heartland Institute conducted with Rasmussen Reports found.
The survey found that 75% of respondents preferred capitalist competition. Socialism was preferred by 11% of respondents, and 14% weren’t sure.
“Despite the increased calls for socialism by many on the far left, the vast majority of likely voters believe that the United States should embrace a free-market economy,” Heartland editor Chris Talgo said in a statement. “Only a sliver of likely voters think that the United States should abandon the free-market capitalistic policies that are responsible for making the United States the wealthiest nation in world history.”
Socialism still remained more popular among younger voters, where support grew to roughly 20%, and free market economics had made inroads — support for capitalism among respondents aged 18-39 swelled from 59% in 2019 to 68%, the Heartland Institute noted.
Support for liberal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a vocal proponent for socialist-style economic policies who gained national attention after her successful 2018 campaign, was better than socialism more generally but still failed to garner the support of a majority of voters, according to the poll. Just 37% of voters had a “very” or “somewhat” favorable view of the “Squad” member, while 58% had a somewhat or very unfavorable view of the congresswoman. The remaining 15% of respondents weren’t sure.
President-elect Joe Biden, who campaigned as a centrist but many on the Right feared would be dragged toward increasingly liberal policy positions by the Democratic Party’s caucus, performed similarly to his share of the popular vote in the 2020 election — 51% of respondents had a favorable view of the incoming president, and 47% didn’t like the incoming president. About 2% were unsure.
The Heartland/Rasmussen Reports poll found a wider contrast between support for capitalism and socialism than other recent polls but reaffirmed the finding that a majority of the United States is opposed to socialism. In 2019, Pew Research polled more than 13,000 respondents and found that capitalism was preferred by 55% of the public to socialism’s 42%. Gallup found in 2019 that capitalism beat out socialism 60% to 39%.
The poll was conducted between Dec. 6-7 among 1,000 likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
