Most Americans haven't heard much about Project 2025, an effort from the conservative Heritage Foundation to assemble "a governing agenda and the right people" ready for a potential Republican president taking office in January 2025, a new YouGov poll finds. But the presidential transition project, as Heritage calls it, is better-known — and much more disliked — among Democrats after recent attacks from high-profile figures including President Joe Biden. Most of a dozen Project 2025 proposals included in the poll are unpopular with Americans.
Overall, 20% of U.S. adult citizens say they've heard a lot about Project 2025, while 39% have heard a little and 42% have heard nothing at all. 35% of Democrats say they've heard a lot about the project, compared to 7% of Republicans.
Not only have few Americans heard much about Project 2025, but few have an opinion about it. 48% don't know whether they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion, while 13% have a very or somewhat favorable opinion, and 39% have an unfavorable opinion. That's driven by Democrats, among whom 8% have a favorable opinion and 64% have an unfavorable opinion. Most Independents with an opinion about Project 2025 dislike it (7% favorable, 38% unfavorable), while Republicans are more positive (26% favorable, 12% unfavorable).
Democrats (30%) are much more likely than Republicans (8%) to have seen a lot of news coverage in the past week about Project 2025. That's a bigger partisan gap than any of the nine other news stories YouGov asked Americans about. Majorities of Democrats and Republicans had seen a lot of coverage about whether Biden would withdraw from the presidential race.
YouGov asked Americans about nine different proposals contained in the Project 2025 document, without mentioning in the question that the proposals are from the project. None have support from more than 50% of Americans, though two of the nine have more support than opposition: Sending U.S. troops to help make arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border, and returning the U.S. to a gold-backed currency. A third, outlawing pornography, has equal shares of support and opposition. The other six proposals have more opposition than support.
All nine proposals have more support from Republicans than Democrats. Seven have support from a majority of Republicans, while none have support from more than one-third of Democrats.
Majorities of Democrats oppose eight of the nine proposals, and more oppose than support the 9th, on a gold-backed currency. More Republicans support than oppose 7 of the 9 proposals. More Independents oppose than support seven of the nine proposals.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has publicly distanced himself from Project 2025, though many of his former cabinet members and employees have contributed. 44% of U.S. adult citizens say Trump supports the proposals in Project 2025 either "a great deal" (32%) or "somewhat" (12%), while 13% say he supports them "not much" (7%) or "not at all" (6%), and 43% aren't sure.
69% of Democrats say Trump supports Project 2025 proposals somewhat or a great deal, compared to 10% who say he supports them not much or not at all. Among Republicans, slightly more say Trump supports the proposals at least somewhat (26%) than that he doesn't (17%).
— Carl Bialik contributed to this article
Update, July 12, 2024 10:30 pm ET: This text and charts in this article have been edited to remove three proposals that were included in the poll but do not match specific Project 2025 proposals.
See the results of this poll, conducted on July 8 - 11, 2024 among 1,113 U.S. adult citizens
Methodology: Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to November 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 31% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 4%.
Image: Getty (Mario Tama)
