Voters Believe Trump Will Try to Conduct Mass Deportations, Are Less Confident About Cuts to Social Security or Abortion Bans
By Abby Springs
With the Iowa caucus just weeks away, former President Donald Trump still holds a commanding lead in Republican primary polling, putting him on track to become the party’s nominee for the third presidential election in a row. If elected, Trump has pledged to make sweeping changes to U.S. policy — including a mass deportation plan, a 10% tariff on foreign imports, the elimination of the Department of Education, and an end to the DACA program.
A new survey from Data for Progress asked voters whether Trump will attempt to pass several different policies if elected president in 2024, including some policies he has explicitly campaigned on and others he has not. We find that voters are confident that Trump will attempt to conduct mass deportations, but far fewer are sure that he will try to make it easier to overturn the results of a presidential election. Notably, only 38% of voters believe Trump will try to cut Social Security and Medicare, while 33% believe Trump will actually seek to expand Social Security benefits.
We see significant partisan splits in how voters respond to these questions. By a +37-point margin, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe Trump will try to make it easier to overturn the results of a presidential election. Democrats are also more likely to believe Trump will attempt to pass a national abortion ban and cut Social Security. Meanwhile, Republicans are more likely to believe Trump will try to expand Social Security benefits by a +38-point margin.
The results show that a significant number of voters still do not believe Trump will attempt to pass many of his stated policy goals if he is elected president, including some of the least popular and most destructive parts of his agenda. While voters are most confident he will try to conduct mass deportations and repeal the Affordable Care Act, they are especially unsure about his position on Social Security.
Abby Springs (@abby_springs) is the Press Secretary at Data for Progress.
Survey Methodology
From December 15 to 17, 2023, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,229 U.S. likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.