Jeremy Zogby: [00:00:00] the Republican Party might be too invested in this notion that the stock market is going to continue to rise.
If anything, that could be the signal that we're at the high point of the greed.
John Zogby: What if a voter is faced with a stark choice, a Democratic socialist, versus a MAGA Republican?
Jeremy Zogby: the 2022 midterms in effect a buyer's remorse against Joe Biden. And I-- we're seeing the exact same thing play out for the Trump administration.
John Zogby: . It's Monday, August 10th. it's a special edition of Real Polling in Real Time with Zogby. I'm John Zogby. How are you? How are you, Jeremy Zogby?
Jeremy Zogby: I'm doing well, Dad. we've got, our latest poll from August 4th and 5th, and you've got some really interesting [00:01:00] numbers., And some questions that are pretty unique that nobody has r- I haven't seen release yet
John Zogby: No, you're absolutely right, and you know I've always loved to do that, and you've inherited that. We love to go where no one else is going. And so here's where we're going today. I just had a radio talk show on this with Brian Kilmeade, as I was running errands, and I'm, listening to the MAGA strategy and messaging for 2028, and it is all about, Abdul El-Sayed in, in Michigan and Zoran Mamdani and the string of Democratic socialists, who have been elected, AOC, and, and so on.
And, the theme is to link them with communism. Socialism becomes communism, becomes Cuba, Joseph Stalin, et cetera. [00:02:00] And so that appeal is easy to see certainly among, younger or older voters. Voters, I would say not simply over 50, but, mainly over 65 or 70, who grew up, during the Cold War.
And you could also see where it would have some play among independents as a scare tactic. And so we wanted to know what public sentiment... What if a voter is faced with a stark choice, a Democratic socialist, versus a MAGA Republican? Then we also wanted to know, what about a Democratic socialist against a mainstream, Republican or a MAGA Republican against a mainstream establishment Democrat?
let me run through these, and I, found them very telling. So head-to-head, [00:03:00] general election 2028. And look, these polls are good for today, and who knows how long the shelf life is. It's treat them as your local weather forecast. It's only as good as the next forecast, but at least here are some numbers, all right?
Who would you vote for? A Democratic socialist, 45% overall. A MAGA Republican, 33%, 12 point different. And, 22% not sure. Now, needless to say, overwhelmingly, 86% of Democrats, said they would support the socialist over the 3% who would vote MAGA Republican. 76%, now that's a 10-point differential, s- 76% of Republicans would vote for the MAGA Republican and 7 would vote for the Democratic socialist.
But among independent voters, 41 to 18, [00:04:00] the Democratic socialist over the MAGA Republican. And of course, you've got two in five independents who are still undecided. But overall, 45 to 33, that's a 12-point difference. And just to underscore this, because I'm not gonna go through a lot of crosstabs 18 to 29-year-old voters, two to one, 56 to 28% would back the socialist over the MAGA.
30 to 44-year-olds, that's covering basically millennials, 45% Democratic Socialist, 31 MAGA Republican. But interestingly, as we move up into, Gen, X, voters in their high 40s and 50s, it's 42-35, still [00:05:00] the Democratic Socialist over the MAGA Republican, and even 65 plus is 44 Democratic Socialist over MAGA Republican.
MAGA Republicans, i- in, in that stark reality have work to do, and it looks like they peak out at about a third of the total people. Yeah.
Jeremy Zogby: The 65 and older,
what was the lead?
John Zogby: the lead was, I'm gonna call it up here, 44 to 36
Jeremy Zogby: 34 to 36. Okay
John Zogby: All right. So now let's play around with this a little bit. what about a- an establishment Democrat versus a MAGA Republican?
there you got even a bigger difference. 50 would support the establishment Democrat, 32% the MAGA Republican. And this time we see, the same kind of [00:06:00] breakdown, as, as with the other pairing. But among independents, it's even gr- greater. 49%, almost half of independents, would, vote for the establishment Democrat over the MAGA Republican at 15%.
So what about an establishment Republican versus a democratic socialist? 42% would back the s- democratic socialist, 39% the establishment Republican. Democratic socialists would hold on to 83% of the Democrats and leads among independents, 33% for the democratic socialist to 25% over the establishment Republican.
Of course, you got a large undecided there. But you have, democratic socialists, [00:07:00] not necessarily a pariah to the electorate, and most especially not a pariah among voters under 45 years of age, which is where we cut off, millennials. And remember, we're projecting, as most other polls are projecting, about 40% of the total vote in 2028 are coming from Gen Z and establishment.
What do you think?
Jeremy Zogby: So just a brief recap, because what we did there,
we could call, scenario or a simulation.
John Zogby: Yeah
Jeremy Zogby: the Pentagon and intelligence agencies do this kind of stuff all the time, war games. just gamed, four scenarios: the Democratic socialist versus the MAGA, the establishment or moderate [00:08:00] Democrat versus MAGA, the Democratic socialist versus the establishment Republican, and then establishment Democrat versus establishment Republican.
In every scenario, the Democrat won. and in every scenario, about four of 10 of independent voters were undecided. But nonetheless, more-- the, the decided independent voters were, in every case, leaning Democrat
John Zogby: Heavily
Jeremy Zogby: and that's, that's pretty significant. So what that tells me is in a situation that we were in just in leading up to the midterms in 2022, I think a good analogy there was so much expectation Biden to long-term deliver, and by long-term, I [00:09:00] mean beyond his base of the Democratic voters and extending into the independent vote. the first 100 days for independents started going sour because inflation and immigration, from a, perspective really independent voters, it started to go haywire for them, those two issues. Inflate- the, the cost of living shot up and, the concerns over the southern border were growing. then it... What, what happened leading up into the 2022 midterms in effect a buyer's remorse against Joe Biden. And I-- we're seeing the exact same thing play out for the Trump administration. A presidency that was characterized by high expectations to deliver what had happened before was [00:10:00] chaotic, and then within 100 days, those expectations crumbling chiefly... Now, we're not gonna boil it all down to the independent vote. There's a lot of undercurrents. Trump lost a lot of hi- of his original juggernaut base that carried him to victory in 2024. But in particular, as a bellwether, buyer's remorse from Democratic vote-- or, I'm sorry, from independent voters, and we see that playing out in this simulation. The only thing I'm gonna add to today's podcast to, to... You were-- you... I think y- your question that you have are both forward-looking to 2028, but are also key indicators as we head in, into the midterms. But I, think another major factor is-- comes down to the stock market expectations, and we've been asking this question since the Trump s- second term. [00:11:00] First it started with do you expect the market to rise, to remain the same, or fall? And, I tracked that question, every month that we did monthly polling. And then only in the last month I decided to add in the variable or crash. So do
you expect it to rise? Do you expect it to remain the same, to fall, or to crash? And looking at the general electorate- 23% think it's going to rise, 23% think it's going to be the same, 16% say fall, but 22% say crash. So just as many people think it's gonna rise, many people who think it's going to stay the same, number of people, somewhere between alm- almost a quarter of voters think the market is going to crash. And that's drastic, because crash really [00:12:00] means It doesn't mean decline, it means tanking. And I wanted to look at that against the Congressional vote. So our voters in the poll, voting in the Congressional generic, ballot question that we have, basically it goes like this. 36% of Democrat, or those who are gonna vote Democrat in the-- who say they're gonna vote for the Democratic candidate in, November, in the midterms, 36% of them the market to crash. 9% say it's gonna rise. On the flip side, we look at those who say they're gonna vote for the Republican candidate, 45% think it's going to rise. Only 7% think it's gonna crash. And I think the way to look at that is two, there are two things that you could say. You could, on the one hand, you could say, [00:13:00] oh, there's more momentum in the Republican Party. 40, almost half of them think the market is going to rise. Only a little over a third of those voting for the Democratic candidate in the midterms think it's going to crash. That the risers outweigh the crashers. actually, I would say that's kind of something to be concerned about. That those who are going to vote Republican, they are heavily invested into the stock market.
And we know that the stock market is in some interesting times right now. Why? A lot of consensus is forming that there's an AI bubble the tech stock part of the market. And then the other thing is just look at Apple and look at IBM. And over the last couple few weeks, we've seen fluctuations of 15 to 20 percent swinging up, swinging down. That's dangerous [00:14:00] territory. Those are big moves in the market. And if you put that all together, what we could be seeing, and this is what we want to look for. We want to look for the expectations of the market. I'm going to track that. I'm seeing numbers and I'm saying, the Republican Party might be too invested in this notion that the stock market is going to continue to rise.
If anything, that could be the signal that we're at the high point of the greed. So that's just my take on that.
John Zogby: So let me begin respectfully with, a correction about Biden administration. Biden's early activities brought him to a very high level of popularity. there, there was a stimulus package and there was the first, infrastructure bill in, a very long time. Things started to go south with him, not simply, because of inflation and [00:15:00] immigration, but the, the turning point came with the botched exit from Afghanistan.
That's when you start to see his numbers really plummet because I don't think anybody, i- put in that situation, and it was a, it was a Trump negotiated exit, but I don't think anybody who actually had to implement the exit could have done a good job, but Biden certainly didn't and you saw his numbers tank and they continued to do so.
But with that said, I guess the bottom line here is, against this backdrop of the hyperpolarization that we always talk about is a sense that, some scare tactics may work and others may not work. And it doesn't appear, that linking, conflating, socialism with [00:16:00] communism or dredging up the Berlin Wall or the Cuba and the Cuban Missile Crisis and so on, are the sort- sorts of things that are gonna scare people enough.
What they're seeing are real live Democratic socialists who actually look like human beings and who are identifying with issues that a majority of Americans are identifying with as we find. affordability, reform at the southern border, the war in the Middle East against Iran and Israel's war against Gaza and Lebanon.
And so at th- this point in time, say what you want about MAGA, but even MAGA voters are getting disenchanted with a MAGA presidency and those who identify with it because it does not appear [00:17:00] to be delivering on what it had promised
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah, I think the common denominator is, the concern about, the cost of living
and, that's, definitely why I tied the analogy to Biden. Look, we could, debate about when it happened. I'm certain that his numbers tanked after the first 100 days, and Afghanistan was January, if I recall. not. but anyway, w- with, a concern about the economy and then the angle that I'm taking, that translating into the expectations of the market, it, becomes easy to understand why there's an appeal to the Democratic Socialist candidate. Why? Because in difficult times, that candidate that can, message about maybe it's food security [00:18:00] or rent security or anything to do with the cost of living is going to have an advantage.
Now, the merit of that, whether that actually translates into a real deliverable, policy is a different thing up to, debate, but this is how campaigns work, the messaging
John Zogby: I've said it before and I believe I've said it on our broadcast that, the, the lightning rod here is Mayor Mamdani in New York. There are a lot of roadblocks, but if he is on his feet as we enter the fall, then look for Democratic candidates and Democratic Socialist candidates to do fairly well.
If he fails, that's the level of disappointment that we saw with Barack Obama, level of disappointment that we saw with the first Donald Trump, and now the [00:19:00] second Donald Trump as well. that, that's the level that we're talking about. So far, Mamdani is on his feet. So that's good. We'll have another podcast, very soon 'cause we still have, some real polling in real time here
Jeremy Zogby: maybe at the end of the week, maybe next week
John Zogby: Yeah. All right. Take care.
Jeremy Zogby: Yep, you too. Bye
John Zogby: Bye