The Word “Socialism” Polls Worse Than the Policies Behind It
A new national survey by The Honest Poll finds that 67% of Registered Voters, and 71% of Likely Voters, support a steep tax on large fortunes with strict rules to close loopholes, including 36% who strongly support it. Nineteen percent (19%) are opposed, and 14% are not sure.
Support for the wealth tax crosses party lines. Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans and 62% of 2024 Trump voters back it, compared with 75% of Democrats and 75% of Harris voters. Support is fairly uniform by race and generation as well, ranging from 66% among Baby Boomers and Hispanic voters to 69% among Generation Z.
A separate question described a specific policy without naming it — workers and government, not private owners, controlling major industries like factories and energy companies, with profits shared among workers rather than owners. Forty-nine percent (49%) of Registered Voters, and 51% of Likely Voters, support that arrangement, including 22% who strongly support it, while 32% are opposed and 18% are not sure. Forty-three percent (43%) of Republicans and 45% of 2024 Trump voters support it, compared with 58% of Democrats and 55% of Harris voters; support is highest among Generation Z (60%) and lowest among Baby Boomers (39%).
Voters respond quite differently when the same idea is given its name. Asked for their view of socialism as a word, just 38% of Registered Voters, and 40% of Likely Voters, say they have a favorable view — eleven points below the 49% who supported the unbranded policy description. Forty-four percent (44%) have an unfavorable view of the word, including 27% who are strongly unfavorable, and 18% are not sure. The gap between the policy and the label is widest among Republicans and 2024 Trump voters: Republican support for the unbranded policy (43%) runs seventeen points ahead of Republican favorability toward the word itself (26%), and the gap among Trump voters is sixteen points, 45% to 29%. Democrats show a smaller version of the same pattern, 58% to 52%, a six-point gap, and Generation Z shows the narrowest gap of any group measured, 60% to 54%.
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The survey of 951 Registered Voters, including 812 Likely Voters, was conducted August 29-September 1, 2026, by The Honest Poll, combining an online panel with live Interactive Voice Response calls, weighted to match known demographic and political benchmarks. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 3.4 percentage points at a 95% level of confidence; the margin of error is higher for subgroups, including the 7% of respondents who identify as independent.
