Author: Krish Grover
Fiscal conservatism and progressive policies: voters want both, but choose neither. In American politics, there is a persistent gap between what policies people claim to support, and then what they actually vote for. Polling data overwhelmingly indicates that voters have widespread support for progressive policy while simultaneously rejecting progressive candidates. Progressive candidates promulgate the same policy that voters claim they support, and yet they keep losing to “establishment” candidates. Likewise, polling data also indicates that voters support less taxes and lower government spending. Ignoring this blaring contradiction between voters’ support for fiscal conservatism and progressive spending, the reality is that voters say they want both, but then refuse to accept the trade-offs or sacrifices required to achieve either.
A fundamental pillar of progressive candidates is their support for universal healthcare. Not only is this popular among progressives, but this policy also has support of an overwhelming majority of Americans. The latest polling taken in December of 2024 by Gallup demonstrates that 62% of American adults believe that the government should ensure health coverage for all. According to this same poll, support for universal healthcare amongst conservatives is also growing from 22% in 2020 to 32% in 2024.1
Universal healthcare is becoming an increasingly popular proposition with the American people and is already supported by the vast majority of Americans. However, many of these same Americans also oppose progressive candidates who campaign on universal healthcare. Only 44% of Americans have a very favorable or somewhat favorable view of Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, while 44% of Americans have a somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable view of the progressive senator. Universal healthcare is Bernie Sanders’ central political issue, and he heavily campaigned on his Medicare for All policy in 2016 and 2020, only to then be rejected by his own party in the primaries. Even Democrats, who already lean more progressive than Republicans and Independents, perceived Sanders as “too radical” to win his party’s nomination, despite the fact that the policy he campaigned on was supported by a healthy majority of Americans.
Other central tenets of Sanders’s campaign were his support for raising the minimum wage, expanding Social Security, tuition-free public college, and paid family and medical leave. Despite being dismissed as “radical” by critics, all of these policies have support from the majority of Americans, with support for these policies ranging from roughly 60% to 80% of the American public. The disconnect between support for progressive policies and the candidate who advocates for such policies is not exclusive to Bernie Sanders. This pattern is evident across many progressive campaigns, where policies enjoy widespread approval, yet the candidates themselves like Elizabeth Warren in 2020 or Nina Turner in her run for congress fail to gain electoral traction. Recently, well-established progressives like Cori Bush and Jamal Bowman were primaried by more centrist candidates who positioned themselves to the right of progressive Democrats. Clearly, while voters support many progressive ideas, they remain hesitant to embrace the candidates who champion these policies.
There are two key issues that most of the United States seem to agree on: The government should increase funding on progressive priorities and simultaneously reduce net government expenditure. 60% of Americans believe that the government is spending too much and only 22% believe that it’s spending too little. If the majority of Americans believe the government is spending too much, then what should be cut from the budget? Over 60% of Americans believe that the government spends too little on education, healthcare, Social Security, and infrastructure. 59% of Americans believe that the government should increase assistance and 58% of the United States population believes that the government should spend more on Medicare. Over 60% of Americans believe that the government is spending the right amount on the military, or too little, with only 35% believing that the government should cut military spending. Cumulatively, Social Security, healthcare, infrastructure, education, defense, and anti-poverty programs account for over 5.5 trillion dollars in government spending, or 82% of all federal spending. The remaining 20% consist of interest on the national debt, a mandatory expense which accounts for 13% of the federal spending, and then “other” administrative expenses, which account for less than 5% of the federal budget. In other words, the majority of Americans want over 95% of the federal budget to remain untouched or increased, while still claiming that the federal government spends too much. Once again, we clearly see that the policies people claim to support in theory often radically differ from the practical implications of their preferences in practice.
The disconnect between perceived policy preferences and actual policy outcomes can be explained by several factors, including voter apathy and indifference towards the government’s ability to improve the quality of their life, the personalization of politics where candidate traits are more important than their policy, and cognitive biases including comfort with routine and cognitive and inertia. When voters feel like their votes don’t matter and are already psychologically resistant to change, why should they vote for the progressive policies? Why not vote for the candidate who they think is funniest, or the most interesting or charismatic, if they believe that the system doesn’t matter to begin with? These systemic barriers will have to be addressed in order to inspire meaningful political change, but until then, we can expect the continuation of this dissonance between public opinion and electoral outcomes.
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