As inflation digs its heels in, threatening retirement savings and raising the prices of household staples such as eggs, cutting taxes has elbowed aside border security to become the top concern for voters.
Support for tax cuts has a massive lead over border security at 57%-24% in the new national survey from McLaughlin & Associates shared Tuesday with Secrets.
It is the top concern for all 29 demographics studied by the Republican pollster and its Democratic voters that want President Donald Trump to cut taxes more than Republicans, at 69%-42%.
While it is also the top GOP concern, many Republicans still choose securing the border as the problem they want Trump to tackle first.
The survey strongly suggests that pushing House and Senate leaders to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts that gave every income level a reduction is a winning issue and one that could help Trump and the GOP retain control of Congress in the midterm elections, possibly with Democratic voter help.
“President Trump’s tax cut is overwhelmingly popular and its pro-growth, tax relief for working middle class voters hit hard by high prices is the top policy goal they need from Congress,” said pollster John McLaughlin.
“Winning next year’s midterms will depend on passing the tax cuts early this year,” he added.
President Trump demands that Congress pass one big reconciliation bill with the tax cuts, spending cuts and border security in one bill that passes ASAP.
Efforts to delay the legislation by breaking it into two bills would (as in 2017) delay the pro-growth tax cuts and cost the… https://t.co/3QBcFmBfpM— Grover Norquist (@GroverNorquist) February 19, 2025
Republicans have been working to extend the Trump tax cuts but have so far failed. Worse, some members said that the budget being worked up in Congress does not include an extension.
Democrats led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have claimed that the Trump tax cuts only benefited corporations and the wealthy. But reports from when it passed show that Schumer is only repeating old Democratic attacks on GOP tax cuts, not reality.
SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS
The nonpartisan FactCheck.org, for example, said, “The vast majority (82%) of middle-income earners — those with income between about $49,000 and $86,000 — received a tax cut that averaged about $1,050.”
In their analysis of the survey, pollsters Jim and John McLaughlin said, “Tax cuts out poll the other three policies with every voter group. Only within the Republican conservative base does securing the border rise to a closer second. However, tax cuts resonate among Democrats 69%, independents 61%, among those who are undecided for Congress 64%, African Americans 47%, Hispanics 64% and women 61%. We already know that the Trump tax cuts are popular. Now we can see they should be the top policy goal.”
