But it was also the most polarizing of the proposals: About twice as many Democrats supported the policy as Republicans. Voters say they they trust Harris more than Trump on housing costs, an issue where the former president once had an edge over President Joe Biden.
Overall, 46% of swing-state voters said they trust Trump more on taxes than Harris, who’s trusted by 44%. But Harris has greatly improved the Democrats’ standing on the issue, narrowing a deficit that was as high as 16 percentage points when Biden led the ticket.
Trump’s proposals — and, to a lesser extent, the competing plans from Harris — would come with a budget-busting price tag.
A Bloomberg review of all Trump’s tax proposals estimates that they would add more than $10.5 trillion to the national debt over 10 years. Harris’ would add about $2 trillion, which she’s said she’d offset with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
“These policies, on paper, are pretty popular,” said Eli Yokley, U.S. politics analyst for Morning Consult. “The long-term effects of them I don’t think voters think about.”
While Harris is still putting out details of her tax plans, many of them mirror policies previously proposed by Biden.
Many of those Biden policies were also generally popular with swing-state voters. A March survey found that seven in 10 voters supported a Biden plan to raise taxes on those making more than $400,000 a year, while only half supported his efforts to raise corporate tax rate.
Trump’s proposals to raise tariffs — 10% across-the-board, plus a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports — won the support of half of swing-state voters.
Methodology
The Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll surveyed 4,962 registered voters in seven swing states: 805 in Arizona, 801 in Georgia, 702 in Michigan, 450 in Nevada, 700 in North Carolina, 803 in Pennsylvania and 701 in Wisconsin. The surveys were conducted online from August 23 to August 27.
The aggregated data across the seven swing states were weighted to approximate a target sample of swing-state registered voters based on gender, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, home ownership, 2020 presidential vote and state.
State-level data were weighted to approximate a target sample of registered voters in the respective state based on gender, age, race/ethnicity, marital status, home ownership, and 2020 presidential vote.
The statistical margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point across the seven states; 3 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania; 4 percentage points in Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and 5 percentage points in Nevada.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump (Credit: Bloomberg)