Sanders and Trump Voters Are More Skeptical of War Than Clinton, Cruz Voters

A Pew poll released this week finds that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders voters share a more skeptical view of U.S. military adventurism than Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton supporters.

On most other issues, Democratic and Republican voters find themselves diametrically opposed, but this issue splits each party.

Only 25 percent of Cruz voters and 28 percent of Clinton voters say “U.S. global involvement makes things worse,” while 38 percent of Trump supporters and 45 percent of Sanders supporters take the same view.

Another atypical issue is Social Security, where overwhelming majorities of voters for all five remaining presidential candidates think payments should not be reduced — despite the fact that both Cruz and John Kasich advocate gradually raising the retirement age or other benefit reductions.

Source: Survey conducted March 17-27, 2016. Based on registered voters.

The poll found wide gulfs on some issues. For instance, only 27 percent of Trump voters say “free trade is good” for the country, compared to 48 percent among Cruz voters, 55 percent of Sanders supporters, and 58 percent among Clinton voters.

Anger at the government is far higher among Trump supporters (50 percent) than among among Clinton (6 percent) and Sanders (13 percent) backers. Also unsurprisingly, Trump supporters are far and above the most likely to say immigrants are a burden, at 69 percent.

Almost twice many Clinton supporters (22 percent) as Sanders supporters (12 percent) want to see U.S. Muslims given more scrutiny — with a whopping 64 percent of Trump supporters wanting to do the same. An overwhelming 91 percent of Sanders supporters think the “economic system favors powerful interests”; on the other end of the scale, just 45 percent of Cruz supporters believe the same.

Original Article
Source: theintercept.com/
Author: Zaid Jilani