[00:00:00] John Zogby: again, our relationship with that term and with these people known as billionaires is a complicated one
[00:00:08] And.
[00:00:08] Jeremy Zogby: There's the old saying that capital is a coward. It goes, it goes where it feels most safe
[00:00:14] John Zogby: Senator Schumer said, we're gonna run our campaign in 2026 and we're gonna go after billionaires
[00:00:24] a nutshell, I don't think going after billionaires is a wise political strategy at all
[00:00:30] Jeremy Zogby: populism, as I have always said is, is here to stay and that the, the Trump administration, Could be fueling that, especially to come back on the side of the left.
[00:00:48] John Zogby: Hi. It's another Friday and that means it's another edition of real polling in real time with Zogby. course, I should say with the Zogbys, right? Because [00:01:00] as always, my son Jeremy is with me. How you doing
[00:01:03] Jeremy Zogby: We should, we should, call it the hou, real, real polling in real time with the House of Zogby.
[00:01:08] John Zogby: The house of I like it. All right. That's what it is. From now on. because we also happened to be at our houses too, okay. you know, Andrew Carnegie was the world's first billionaire, and from that day forward, Americans relationship and views of billionaires have been very, very complicated. And suffice it to say that, and large. the best efforts of the left and the times right wing populism, Americans really just don't, have a negative view or overly negative view of billionaires until our most recent polling. know, we, [00:02:00] have, have polled about attitudes towards billionaires now for a few decades. And what we have found up to now is that people view billionaires as fortunate, as lucky, as generous as leaders so on, and don't necessarily automatically categorize them as cheats, or greedy or corrupt or so on until now. And we thought it was a good idea to reprise. Some of the polling that we've done today because billionaires are in the news a lot, and in fact, just recently, not only Bernie Sanders, but Senator Schumer appeared on a call with the Democratic National Committee and said, we're gonna run our campaign in 2026 and we're gonna go [00:03:00] after billionaires and. I know. I was stunned when he said that because I, I seem to think that Americans have other things on their mind than going after billionaires. But again, our relationship with that term and with these people known as billionaires is a complicated one. And. We've got some new polling data. You have some concepts and some numbers, but it reveals that, by and large from a tilt towards more positive view of billionaires, there's rather a nuanced mixed view, that some of the negatives that people hold about billionaires have actually climbed.
[00:03:49] While some of the positives, Have, have gone down. So what can you tell us are, by and large are, are billionaires viewed as [00:04:00] as corrupt, selfish, greedy, or are they by and large viewed as as generous leaders? Fortunate people.
[00:04:08] Jeremy Zogby: Yeah. Well, I mean, I remember the earlier polling and what you talked about as far as. The, the more positive attributes of genius and role model and lucky and blessed. And that tended to be, the terms that voters more associated and in larger percentages. And then as you've said, it's flipped. And I mean, there's some historical forces.
[00:04:31] I mean, first and foremost in the present, I don't think that there's been an administration with a greater representation than this one. You know, I mean, I may be exaggerating here, but it seems like half of the, admin are, are stacked with, with billionaires. but what adds more to that is no doubt about it. The growing information sphere that is the internet and more and more. Reports and more and more [00:05:00] documentaries that delve into the histories. I mean, when I was a kid, as you mentioned, we, we learned about Carnegie and Carnegie gifted us, the poor man's university, the the public libraries and all this philanthropy.
[00:05:13] But a lot has come out in, in the past couple decades about what were behind the motives of philanthropy and, and, I, we don't need to get into that, but. that, that there were more sinister, things going on in, in terms of evading taxes and hiding money and, influencing. And so it's very relevant because now our government is packed with, with a billionaire interest class.
[00:05:41] And, what do, what do Americans think about that? So just looking at those classic attributes that we have voters, rank about billionaires. The, the, the top five are all negative, greedy, [00:06:00] selfish, shrewd, well shrewd is pos could be positive I guess, but also negative, ruthless and corrupt, and anywhere from half of voters to three fifths of voters say that that's an accurate description.
[00:06:14] And then the bottom five, that is a lucky, blessed leader, genius, and role model all fall off a cliff. And you know, that just tells us that, you know, there's this populism on the right and the left of, as you suggested, especially on the right, Bernie's bringing it back. you know, the, kind of the Occupy Wall Street mentality.
[00:06:39] And I think that populism, as I have always said is, is here to stay and that the, the Trump administration, Could be fueling that, especially to come back on the side of the left. but of course we're just talking about attributes, but we actually have [00:07:00] some data on actual billionaires and what voters think about that.
[00:07:04] And so, I'll kick off the first one, and then you, you, you go and then we can, interchange. But we'll start with ranking. The one who comes out on the top. With the, the most positive ratings and, and this is using the favorable unfavorable rating, number one is Warren Buffet. 57% say that they're favorable of Warren Buffet and only 21% say they're unfavorable.
[00:07:34] That's a hell of a, of a, a net positive, favorable ratio. Of course, this goes across party, and. When I drill down to, to demographics, particularly highest among men, among suburban voters, and those earning more than a hundred thousand in income, those actually go beyond 60% [00:08:00] favorable. now I have a reason why I think Warren Buffet comes out on top, but let's go through the others first, and that'll make more sense in, in this, this ranking.
[00:08:11] John Zogby: Yeah, sure. you know, by and large, bill Gates is favorable. Bill Gates has to a great degree successfully. changed his legacy away from, the cutthroat, tough competitive, businessman who led Microsoft to the Gates Foundation. He's taken a hit, you know, needless to say with his. we'll put that in quotes with, Jeffrey Epstein, but he's 53% favorable and 35% unfavorable. he performs better among Democrats. and that is because I think he's particularly viewed, in that light as, as being [00:09:00] either nonpartisan or tilting liberal. The next billionaire in the news is the man Really Who dominates the news.
[00:09:10] And that's Elon Musk. And there we have a flip, almost the exact opposite numbers. 39% favorable for Elon Musk, 52%, unfavorable. And of that 52, 41 of four fifths. Of the Unfavorables are very unfavorable, hugely negative among Democrats. of Republicans are favorable, but only 32% of independents are favorable, and that's where I think we get into the political. Don't we of more than just the view of billionaires is the view of this billionaire and his position, [00:10:00] unique position, in this administration.
[00:10:04] Jeremy Zogby: Yeah. Yeah, and and that's absolutely spot on. That this is where the, the political polarization rears its ugly head. 68% of Republicans rating Musk favorable, a world of a difference. of course looking at the, the media consumers, the legacy media consumers, 30% view, Musk favorable, that's probably the Fox News folks.
[00:10:34] and then looking, looking at the new media followers. That is those who. Trust most podcasts and social media, of course, a large share of which is gonna be X Musk's platform, 53%, view favorably. And, yeah, I mean, so we've gone from, from Warren Buffet who has a, a net positive, view, among voters, almost [00:11:00] three fifths of voters down to Bill Gates.
[00:11:02] A little bit over half. as you suggested, bill Gates used to be higher, I think. probably a lot of that coming from, more negative coming from, conservatives and Republicans because of Covid and, his involvement, with the Gates Foundation. And as you suggested maybe too, the what uner with the, the Epstein files.
[00:11:26] and then dropping up the cliff to Elon Musk. We'll make a mention of our number four,
[00:11:32] John Zogby: Yeah, that's a significant one.
[00:11:34] Jeremy Zogby: yeah, j George Soros, of course. But w we have to say that although he has a 20 per percent favorable rating and a 40% unfavorable rating, still about 40% don't know who he is. That means 20% are not sure and 20% don't know, actually say they're not familiar.
[00:11:56] And so he's blanketed by that so that [00:12:00] he's deeply in the negative territory. But he's blanketed by the fact that a lot of people just don't really know much about him.
[00:12:07] John Zogby: Yeah, the, the fascinating thing is that, Soros has been Diablo as far as the right is concerned, and as much as candidates, the party itself policies could be attributed to Soros and a foreign conspiracy. And, you know, let's be honest, an ethnically related. Foreign conspiracy. he's been out there in the news and it's so surprising that, not so much in the news. Of course, it's dominated by Trump and Elon Musk. but that, as you point out, 40%, don't know enough about who he is. And, Going to be very difficult, I'm gonna steer the conversation in this direction [00:13:00] a political campaign about any of these billionaires. 'cause on one hand, Democrats may say, we're gonna go after billionaires, but the evidence just isn't there. And then there's always, I. the Warren Buffet and the Bill Gates, who are seen more as benign figures. So the term billionaire is too sweeping. On the other hand, as far as the right is concerned, hard.
[00:13:29] While, while they can make a case focusing on a George Soros, who's not the lightning rod that he, he once was right in the middle blocking. That effort against billionaires, of course, is Elon Musk. And what many would regard including independence as, as overreach, that billionaire. a nutshell, I don't think going after billionaires is a wise political strategy [00:14:00] at all
[00:14:00] Jeremy Zogby: I, I mean that's a, that's an astute point and that, that kind of, matches up with, with my verdict. overall, I, I agree to just blanket, make the blanket statement going after billionaires is problematic of, of course, you know, on the economic side. You know, there's the old saying, the economic end of investment side.
[00:14:24] There's the old saying that capital is a coward. It goes, it goes where it feels most safe. And that's a little bit tongue in cheek. You know, that that's, there's, there's a little bit of humor in that saying it's, in other words, it, are you really that much of a coward if you feel that the guns are being pointed at you, especially by politicians, those with money.
[00:14:48] are going to leave and go where other nations in this big world are gonna welcome them. And so pushing too much of that agenda can actually backfire and [00:15:00] the country can be hollowed out that way. So that, to your point could be, something that Bernie may wanna just, you know, message test a little bit better.
[00:15:12] And so I, the verdict is this. The verdict, I think is clear. When we look at all these numbers. Billionaires are fine if there is the public perception that they're just doing their thing in investing and getting wealthier and giving back to the community. But once they cross over into the world of politics, as Elon Musk has and as George Soros has, that's when we see that their numbers tank.
[00:15:43] And that's how we got to this point, because there's a lot of history, as I suggested in the opening of, of the podcast that's being uncovered about the Rockefeller family, the Morgan family, even the Carnegies and how [00:16:00] they were taking their wealth in their investment and they were finding themselves into influencing government policy, research and legislation.
[00:16:10] And the more people know about that. They don't like it. So if you're a billionaire, just stick to making widgets and providing services and getting wealthy that way. Crossing over into the world of politics is probably not gonna help your image.
[00:16:26] John Zogby: No. And the final thought on on my end is that, The problem, and this is aimed mainly at Democrats. problem with attacking billionaires is that it's a two step If we can tax them more and make them pay their fair taxes, then we can do this for you, the if then does not work. Politics.
[00:16:56] You have to go directly to voters and say, this [00:17:00] is what I've done for you. This is what I'm gonna do for you next. Once you begin it with, if we can, people are just fundamentally, distrusting and find it unbelievable. that's why in some respects I think Donald Trump is, has, has the upper hand because he's not wasting any time with the, if I can do this, he's gone.
[00:17:30] Right. Jumped on the loader and, and just mowed right through. And he's doing, as opposed to saying if I could, now he's being stopped by the courts. But, he's having, you know, some success at least so far. but anytime you have to say, I have to do this first in order for me to get to you, you lose people.
[00:17:59] It's not a [00:18:00] bumper sticker anymore.
[00:18:01] Jeremy Zogby: Mm-hmm. Well said. why? I think that about does it, on my end? How about you?
[00:18:09] John Zogby: It does it on my end. We do wanna remind people, as you always do if you need our services, which means not just generating data, but. But going through that data and, and explaining to you what it means, how it serves you, how you can market better and communicate better, strategize better, go to our website, John Zogby strategies, and press the contact button. If you wanna know how to read polls. There is my book, and that is also, you can find that on our website, john zogby strategies.com or of course, on Amazon.
[00:18:49] Jeremy Zogby: And share this podcast. share it as wide as you can. tell others about it, that we're on a lot of the platforms. Spotify, [00:19:00] SoundCloud, YouTube, apple Podcast as, you suggested it's on our website, on the podcast button. And, This is what we do. it it we, we give context and meaning to the data as well as strategies.
[00:19:16] And I think, actually if billionaires were to, to tune in, they would probably want to know more after hearing this podcast. This is just scratching the surface in what we can do with data.
[00:19:28] John Zogby: Okay, have a good