WASHINGTON, D.C. (October 9, 2023) – Cygnal, the nation’s most accurate and fastest growing private polling firm, released its latest national poll data (conducted Oct. 3-4, 2023) on the GOP presidential primary race and an array of trending topics.
“Following the second GOP debate, Vivek Ramaswamy is in second place overall and has the pole position among the non-Trump candidates,” said Pollster and Director of Client Strategy, John Rogers. “It’s important to remember that we’re now less than 100 days until the Iowa caucus, but it’s still a long way to go. A sizeable share of the Republican electorate is looking for an alternative to Trump, but so far none of the current or former Republican officeholders have consolidated that voting bloc.”
“The White House’s branding pivot to ‘Bidenomics’ has failed. Since January, there has been a slow-but-steady decline in Biden’s share of the ballot against both Trump or a Republican-other-than-Trump. The fact that Biden can only get to 42% against ‘a Republican not named Donald Trump’ shows you how vulnerable he is; for example, Biden loses 7% of college-educated women when facing off with a generic Republican, compared to when running against Trump,” Rogers said.
Below are Rogers’s top five takeaways:
- Political outsider and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy holds the second-place position (10%) in the overall GOP presidential primary race, following the second Republican Presidential Debate hosted by Fox Business.
- Voters don’t believe “Bidenomics” is good for them. President Biden’s support continues to drop, in a statistical dead heat against either Trump or another Republican; since the beginning of the year, the presidential race tightening has more to do with Biden losing ballot share than Trump gaining. Biden’s net image continues to be underwater at -8.
- When asked about the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) lawsuit against Amazon alleging monopolistic business practices, nearly half (49%) side with Amazon and only 31% side with the FTC. Women are less likely to side with Amazon in the FTC fight though they still support Amazon by a plurality.
- Support for the UAW strike clears a majority, with 52% saying they support the workers’ strike led by the UAW union. Sixty-two percent of American voters support the UAW workers participating in the recent strikes, and no group of voters is categorically against the UAW strike; even Republicans support it by a +7 margin, though nearly a quarter neither support nor oppose. But the support is really for the UAW worker—as seen at 62% support for the workers compared to only 43% who say they support the UAW union itself; Independents and Republicans fall off in support for the union compared to the worker.
- A Robert Kennedy, Jr., independent bid for the presidency could draw interest: on a three-way ballot with Biden and Trump, Kennedy hits 12% on the ballot, while Trump sits at 40% and Biden garners 39%.
- (bonus) Prior to the survey, 56% of people said they were already aware of the dating situation between Taylor Swift and NFL star Travis Kelce. Eighteen percent of Americans consider themselves to be a “Swifty,” while another 40% say they aren’t a “Swifty” but they like her music. Swifties are much more likely to be Democratic than those who just like Taylor Swift’s music and don’t give themselves the label or voters who do not listen to her music.
“We saw some large movement among wealthier Independents to voting for a Generic Democrat,” said Director of Innovation, Noah Wyhof-Rudnick. “The big reason for this seems to be a shift in the economic mood, where they think it’s recovering, and their top priority has shifted to other concerns like abortion or threats to democracy.”