Gallup polls Americans on presidential candidates and their campaign platforms
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A member of the audience stands alone after a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Sumter Country Civic Center in Sumter, S.C., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
NewsWorks Tonight host Dave Heller sits down for his weekly conversation with Gallup’s Frank Newport to talk about trends in American opinion.
If Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the two major party nominees, it would be the first time across the elections for which we have data that the two nominees would both have unfavorable ratings above 50 percent. Trump in particular is more disliked than any person who has gone on to get his party’s nomination in our recent history. George H.W. Bush came closest to having a similar unfavorable rating in 1992, but he was not nearly as unpopular as Trump.
One of Trump’s campaign promises is massive tax reform, including cutting tax rates for everyone, simplifying the number of tax brackets, instituting a standard 15 percent corporate tax rate, getting rid of the estate tax, and eliminating deductions and loopholes available to the very rich. New issue testing shows that most of these get a net positive, but fairly tepid, response.
Republican rival Sen. Ted Cruz has proposed abolishing the IRS and eliminating at least four departments of government; Education, Commerce, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development. The problem is, even though Americans are very negative on the government in general, they oppose these proposals, with strong opposition to the idea of shutting down government departments.
North Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska are the states in which residents are most positive about their schools. West Virginia and Nevada residents are the most negative. Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey are all in the middle.
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