Polling from Navigator Research this month found that 54 percent of Americans are familiar with Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation proposal that aims to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government and consolidate executive power if a Republican wins the 2024 presidential election. That represents a 25 percent increase from polling taken just one month earlier.
JULIA CONLEY; julia@commondreams.org
Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
Conley reported for Common Dreams that just 11 percent of people polled view Project 2025 favorably. Forty-three percent of those polled have negative views, representing a 25-point increase from last month. Conley wrote: “Project 2025 appears to especially be galvanizing Democratic voters, 71 percent of whom said they were aware of the document.”
Conley told the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Just a month [ago], I had written about how most people weren’t familiar with Project 2025 yet. This [poll] comes after a push” for more awareness: “Biden mentioned it directly, and it was starting to get attention in popular culture, like [when] Taraji Henson hosted the BET Awards. This [poll] is showing that the more people learn about [Project 2025], the less they like it. At this point, over half of Americans are familiar with it. In a short amount of time, the more people learn about this agenda, the more potentially harmful it could be to Trump. It wasn’t being talked about directly before… It’s clear to Democratic politicians running for office that they need to be focusing on this.
“In Kamala [Harris]’s first speech after Biden stepped down, she … closed with [a line about] defeating ‘Trump’s Project 2025 agenda.’ That was meaningful because she was connecting Project 2025 to Trump, who has been saying he doesn’t know what it is or who is behind it.” Investigations have found that more than 100 of his former administration officials helped write the proposal. Harris was “signaling that that is something she’s going to be doing in the next few months: making it clear that even if Trump pretends he doesn’t know what Project 2025 is, the agenda is his agenda.” Polling by Navigator Research also shows that the public associates Project 2025 with Trump. A plurality of Americans believe the proposal “accurately represents what Trump stands for.”
Conley believes the public knows that Project 2025 is “focused on putting more power in the hands of the president, gutting the federal government, reducing staff at the EPA, and so forth. Those types of big points––centralizing power with the president––are clear to people and are likely distressing.”
Conley noted that J.D. Vance, Trump’s pick for vice presidential candidate, is “having a harder time distancing himself from [Project 2025]. Vance wrote the foreword of a book published by Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025. Vance will make it harder for Trump to distance himself.”
Project 2025 notably calls for the FDA to revoke its approval of mifepristone pills, which are commonly used for medication abortions. “In the past, Vance has said that mifepristone pills should be available,” added Conley. “But now he’s supporting this proposal which says they shouldn’t be––so there are mixed messages. Project 2025 [outlines] removing mifepristone from the market. Since the agenda is written by an influential right-wing think tank, it’s safe to say that’s what they will try to do.”