Mark Penn Polls

2,000 Americans were asked their thoughts on President Trump's use of Twitter. Each month, Presidential Pollster Mark Penn shares findings from the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, which is released by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard and The Harris Poll. To sign up for regular updates and to learn more about poll results and coverage, visit harvardharrispoll.com and follow @Mark_Penn_Polls on Twitter. TRANSCRIPT: Now, one of the big issues I think the people have talked about since the beginning of the Trump presidency is the president's use of Twitter. And it's pretty clear that a lot of the declines that you see here in the recent poll are partially some of the fights that the president in has participated in in Twitter. And so, we asked, I think for the first time that I've seen anywhere, a very simple question: Should President Trump stop using Twitter or keep using it? 71% said stop using Twitter, 29% keep using it. That is a pretty clear message from the American public that they think his use of Twitter is divisive, and that they'd rather see him tone it down. We're going to follow it up next month with some more specific questions, do they want him to use Twitter sometimes, or use it in certain ways, or do they really believe hard and fast that the only thing for him to do is to stop using it altogether?

It's fascinating because obviously the president sees it as a major element of his communication. But only 29% see that as something that he should continue to do.

And talking about Twitter and the stock market, because of the Twitter announcements, 35% say the recent stock market jitters are the result of Trump's announcement. 30% due the trade tensions. 21%, the economic troubles of large global companies. The Federal Reserve is not really blamed for the stock market variation. And 54% disapprove of Trump's criticism of the Federal Reserve. Again, not an overwhelming majority, but a majority. And most people want the Federal Reserve on both economic growth and monetary policy.

And who would you blame more if the US economy enters a recession this year? President Trump, 57. The Fed, 33. Other, 10. If this economy goes into a recession, as many economists are saying, but they've been saying it for about a year and a half now, then President Trump would take a significant hit. And he knows that, which is why he's pushing so hard on trying to keep interest rates low, and presumably get a deal in China and resolve some of the trade uncertainty.

Each month, Presidential Pollster Mark Penn shares findings from the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, which is released by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard and The Harris Poll. To sign up for regular updates and to learn more about poll results and coverage, visit https://harvardharrispoll.com and follow @Mark_Penn_Polls on Twitter.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

MARK PENN PODCAST

HARVARD/HARRIS POLL MONTHLY REVIEW

SEPTEMBER 9, 2019

Welcome to this month's podcast of the Harvard/Harris Poll in which we conduct about 2500 interviews with registered voters at the end of August, on the dates of August 26th to 18th, 2019. And for this podcast let me say that joining us as places to find it are Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SoundCloud, Buzzsprout, Castbox, RadioPublic, Podcast Addict and many more new platforms, we're growing. Make sure to follow this show for daily updates at @Mark_Penn_Polls. Importantly, take 30 seconds to sign up for the newsletter, go to, one word, HarvardHarrisPoll.com. Thank you very much, and now let's launch in to this month's data.

We're going to cover approval and mood of the country, road to 2020, Trump and Twitter, China and trade, growing racial tensions, election fraud, gun control, Russia investigation, discussion of Greenland, and we're going to do a particular deep dive on immigration.

Let's launch into the trends that we're seeing on the approval and mood of the country. In general, we haven't seen a lot of changes over time on the overall approvals of the key political figures in this country. President Trump remained this month at 45% job approval, where he's been for the last, really, three months within a point, coming down from a bump when we had 3.2% growth in the economy at 48. But again, within a tight and narrow range, 55% disapproving of his job.

But, if you look at it by what he's doing on the economy, 55% approval, down slightly from highs. Stimulating jobs, 55%, a majority but down slightly. Fighting terrorism, stable, 55. Immigration actually up a little at 47. Foreign affairs, 43. Administering the government, 44. Very little change on the pattern. The most interesting thing of course is the credit he gets on economy and terrorism.

What about whether the country itself is on the right track or the wrong track? Despite the economic progress and satisfaction that the voters appear to have, they continue to say that the country itself is going in the wrong direction. 54% wrong direction, 37% right direction, down slightly, and 9% don't know.

Is the economy on the right track or wrong track? Well, all of the recession talk that really occurred in the last couple of months brought down some of the most positive sentiment on the economy we've seen. 46% in this poll said wrong track, 43% said right track, after many months of people saying that the economy was more on the right track than the wrong track, going back to December when it previously dipped because of recession talk. So every time there's significant talk about a recession, the public is very sensitive to it, they pick up those cues and signals, and down goes satisfaction with the economy.

If you look at how strong do you think the economy was, back in April that was at a record high 74%. That's lost eight points now down to 66%, 34% say that it's weak. So still two thirds say that it's strong, but you see the trend as there's more recession talk. Will this month's job figures, will the fact that unemployment stayed at 3.7%, will the fact that the stock market seems to be coming back reverse that this month? Remains to be seen, it remains high, but is weakening.

Just replaying a few numbers from the June poll. Because gun safety has emerged following those incidents in Texas and Ohio, is a major issue in the US. And I think it's good to just refresh our recollection on some data that we gathered in June, which is more relevant than ever.

Which is, do you think gun laws should be mostly at the federal level or at the state and local level? 57%, nearly six in 10 believe the federal government is the right place for gun laws.

Do you think that murder by gun in American in the last five years has gone up, gone down, stayed the same? 62%, gone up. 14%, gone down. 24%, stayed the same.

Technically, in the last five years, it has ticked up a little bit in the last two. But over the last 20 years, actually gun violence, not counting suicides, and more than half of gun violence is suicide related. Once you take those out and you're dealing with the homicides, in fact that number has come way down over the last 20 years. Although it's begun to tick up slightly per capita the last couple. Still numbers that are not as high as the public thinks.

Should the White House ask Congress to pass legislation to raise the minimum age for purchasing guns from 18 to 21? Yes. This is a really powerful proposal. It turns out that 20% of all murders are committed by people who are aged 21 and under. So while drinking is restricted for age 21, right now in most states you can buy a gun at 18. Huge public support for raising that to 21.

Should gun ownership be licensed like car ownership? 69%. Or just require background checks? Again, when I was working with Vice President Al Gore, I pushed him to make the proposal for national licensing, which he did. The backlash was so strong that he never continued to use that proposal on the stump. But he probably was the first and maybe the last President candidate, major nominee, to come out toward licensing itself.

Background checks, as I pointed out in a recent piece in The Hill, are in effect licensing because they create a database that registers every gun owner by registering all the transactions anyway. It just doesn't have the kind of training and certification aspects that a true licensing program would have.

Of course, those on the other side of this issue are always worried that once you have licensing, once you have universal background checks, that it's a matter of time before people push for confiscation of guns. I can't certify one way or the other. But that's the emerging argument, and why a lot of people who might support these things in principle are concerned about what would happen if they would be put in effect, especially when about 40% of all Americans have a gun in their household.

Do you favor a measure that would ban all gun ownership except for police and military? Only 32% favor that, 68% oppose it. So a lot of people favor additional gun safety measures, even raising the age of purchase. They were in earlier questions we did, favor the assault rifles ban.

Although there are relatively fewer murders by rifles than handguns. Most of the murders or homicides by gun are in urban areas with younger people. About half of all murders are committed by people 25 and younger. Old guys, geezers like me, we don't kill a lot of people with guns. Suicide rates, however, are much higher.

So which of the following would do the most to curb school shooting? Banning assault rifles, 35. Enhancing school security, 34. Increasing commitment to mental health issues, 32. [inaudible 00:43:51] of the matter is, the public wants it all. The want all of these things done, not just one of them.

Do you think that most school violence is related to mental health, urban gangs, or easy access to guns? Mental health, number one, 49%. 13, urban gangs. Easy access to gun though, at 39. Again, I come back to, they want it all. They understand it's a multi-faceted problem.

Okay. Let's do a little bit of a deep dive into the economy and see what the voters think. If I take a 1 to 10 scale and ask people to rate the economy on the health, only 5% say very strong. 7% are at 9, 14% ... so 18% are at 7.

So even though a solid majority's will be 5 and above. In fact, there'll be almost no one, maybe one out of five, who will rate the economy 4 and below. And if I take what's conventionally the top three boxes though, I'm only at 25%, 26%. And if I take the top box, I'm only at 5%.

So people think the economy's going well, but they'll not all over there on 10, very strong. They're really on kind of more in a ... If you had an excellent, very good scale, they're more on the very good side.

And in fact, would you rate business conditions in the United States today very good? 14. Good? 35. Normal? 35. Bad? 14. So only 14 say bad.

Would you say jobs in the United States today are plentiful? 45. Not so plentiful? 41. Hard to get? 14. Again, given the incredibly low unemployment numbers, you would have though that this question would have come out a little stronger.

Are you concerned or not concerned that there'll be an economic recession in the next six months? Well, 55% are concerned about a recession. So recession worries are really beginning to take over on the economic front.

It's interesting, you know, is this a partisan issue? Are Democratic economists saying one thing versus Republican economists? Is there a desire, both ... Is there a desire on the part of some to, I think, keep a recession drum going, because it takes away from President Trump his main strength?

Or is there in fact a recession coming? Or is all this just the normal fear of Wall Street that something's going to go wrong, that consistently plays itself out? We don't know, but I'd say a majority now of the public are concerned about a recession.

Do you think that in the next six months, business conditions will be better? 25. Worse? 23. So again, there's a lot of negative sentiment building up.

Would you say there'll be more jobs? 28. Fewer jobs? 32. Or the same number of jobs in the next six months? Again, no real positive momentum moving forward.

Do you expect your income to increase, decrease, or remain the same in the next six months? Slightly better news here. When you ask people about themselves, they're a little bit more optimistic. 27% say that their pay is going to increase, 16% say decrease, and 57%, remain the same.

Have you made any big ticket purchases? About 32% of the public acknowledged that they made big-ticket purchases. What do they view as a big-ticket purchase? Automobile's top of the list, TV sets, refrigerators, washing machines.

Do you plan to make any big tickets purchases in the next six months? 71%. The number one thing they plan on buying? Automobile, 37. TV set, 22. Home renovation, pretty good number for the home renovation industry, 22%.

Did you take a vacation in the last six months? Majority says yes. Did you travel to the US or a foreign country? 70% within the US, 16% a foreign country. And pretty strong, 14% did both.

Are you currently planning to take a vacation in the next six months? 55%, even more. Do you travel to a US or foreign country? Again, numbers that are about the same, 72% in the US.

So when you look at it, look at economic numbers, people think the economy's going in the right direction, but not a lot of people say it's very strong.

There's a growing cloud about whether or not a recession is coming. They don't really see jobs as overly plentiful. They do think, more likely than not, that they're going to get an increase in pay. And they're doing some pretty good purchases and taking a pretty good number of vacations when you look at it.

The monthly Harvard Harris Poll is where we talk about the American public, and using 2,000 interviews with registered voters, really analyze what they think about today's hot issues.

In particular, not only are we going to cover the 2020 election, but we're also going to do deep dives into the economy, immigration, guns, and of course, growing concern about tech companies over the subject of antitrust.

You won't to miss the in-depth topics that we cover in this month's Harvard Harris poll. And by the way, if you want to follow me on Twitter, for the polls, go to Mark_Penn_Polls.

This month we interviewed 2,214 registered voters between July 31st and August 1st by The Harris Poll.

We of course weighted the results by age, gender, region, race, ethnicity, martial status, you named it. And we keep parties ID similar from poll to poll, so we don't show a lot of the random variation that some of the other polls show. We think that's a much better technique.

Let's dive into the data that came back this month. This is not going to be one of the most exciting months. A lot of this was taken, and in fact all of it was taken before the incidents occurred of violence and shooting both in Texas and Ohio. So we're going to see next month how those incidents really may have changed public opinion.

Let's take a look at antitrust, and perhaps the newest target of antitrust, big technology companies. Do you think that Internet giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, among others, are helping or hurting innovation in the economy? Good news, tech companies can look at this, 62% say that they are helping innovation in this country, and only 37% say hurting.

Do you believe that Internet giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, among others, are helping or hurting competition in the economy? Here it's a closer question. 51 helping, 49 hurting. Basically a split, American public, on that issue.

Do you think today's Internet giants help or harm consumers with the services they offer? People find the services, many of them delivered ostensibly for free because they're funded through data and advertising, 67% of the public says these consumer services, they help us. 33% say harm.

Do you think that today's Internet giants build products and services with the best interests of consumers in mind, or are they largely focused on profits and market power?

Here's where the case begins to come apart a little bit. 32% believe they have the best interests of the consumer, and 68% say they are largely focused on profits and market power.

So now you see, they say, "Well look, I like the services, I like that they're free, they're kind of helpful, but I no longer trust the motives of those big tech companies."

Do you think today's Internet giants have accumulated market share and power over the years in a fair or unfair way? Split right down the middle here, 51 fair, 49 unfair.

Do you think today's Internet giants have taken steps to reduce market competition or largely acted in a fair way? Again, another weakness of the tech company image emerging. 67% say they've taken steps to reduce market competition. While only a third think they've acted largely in a fair way.

And that again shows that there's increased skepticism about the motives of tech companies and the way they are making decisions in terms of what they do in the marketplace.

Do you think they create jobs? Yes. 62% say they create jobs. But, do you think that today's Internet giants should be subject to federal antitrust review, given that they offer largely free services? 68% favor an antitrust review. Which is what is going on now, based on the best available information appearing in the press about what the Justice Department is doing, which is doing a full review of the tech companies on antitrust grounds. That has 68% support.

Do you support or oppose the decision of the Department of Justice to open sweeping antitrust review of today's Internet giants? That number is 71%.

So they may say, "Look, the services are free, we're helping the economy, we're creating jobs, why interfere with any of that?" The public is saying, "Well, we're not sure of your motives, maybe you're acting more out of profit than trying to make the best products for consumers. Let's have the government take a peak, let's have the government lift the covers on technology companies and see whether or not there are potential antitrust violations." That's how the public has come out on this really important issue.

Each month, Presidential Pollster Mark Penn shares findings from the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, which is released by the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard and The Harris Poll. To sign up for regular updates and to learn more about poll results and coverage, visit harvardharrispoll.com/ and follow @Mark_Penn_Polls on Twitter.

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