A majority of Americans support at least half the “Make America Great Again” policy agenda, a new data analysis shows.
So what
The June report by Echelon Insights helps explain why former President Donald Trump campaigned as a populist but sometimes governed like a traditional conservative.
The data
Fifty-six percent of registered votes are culturally conservative and 52% are economically liberal, according to Echelon Insights, a political research and intelligence firm.
But most cultural conservatives are also economically conservative, and most economic liberals are also socially liberal — leaving just 14% of voters as big-government traditionalists, or populists as defined by the report.
The reality
Trump’s populist appeal gave him an electoral advantage with a key group of 2020 swing voters, including blacks and Hispanics, Echelon Insights cofounder Patrick Ruffini noted in a Wednesday Twitter thread about the report.
As president, though, Trump’s liberal economic impulses were reigned in by a Republican Party whose voters mostly remain at least somewhat convinced by small-government principles.
