Project 2025’s Unpopularity Continues to Grow: New Poll

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025’s unpopularity has continued to grow among voters, according to an NBC News poll published on Sunday.
Last year, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, in collaboration with other right-leaning groups, published its Project 2025 document. According to its official website, the project aims to “pave the way for an effective conservative administration” by using “a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook,” should the GOP win this year’s election.
The new survey shows 57 percent of voters view Project 2025 as unfavorable, with only 4 percent seeing it as favorable. The poll with a sample of 1,000 registered voters was conducted between September 13 to 17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
In response to the polling, Democratic pollster Nick Gourevitch took to X, formerly Twitter, to share Sunday’s poll results, including that 51 percent of voters also view Project 2025 as strongly unfavorable.
In another X post, Gourevitch pointed towards a poll from June conducted by Navigator Survey that shows a similar trend to Sunday’s poll. In June, 67 percent of voters opposed Project 2025 compared to 19 percent who supported it.
“Strategic polling (as opposed to just horse race polling) also showed early on that the substance of Project 2025 was super unpopular and that if we drove it, we could get to this outcome. This was from a @NavigatorSurvey poll in June simulating that,” he added.
Meanwhile, Sunday’s polling comes as the 2024 election draws closer in which former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, will face off in November.
Proposals within Project 2025 include reintroducing legislation making it easier to fire federal workers; prosecution for distributing abortion pills by mail; and abolishing recently established diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at the Department of Defense (DOD). However, one of the most significant proposals is a plan to reintroduce Schedule F, a Trump-era executive order rescinded by President Joe Biden that would see tens of thousands of federal workers reclassified, making them easier to fire.
While Trump has repeatedly denied having any relation to the document, Project 2025’s 900-page proposal was drafted with input from a long list of former Trump administration officials who are poised to fill the top ranks of a potential new administration, according to the Associated Press.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s and Harris’ campaign via email for comment.
Sunday’s poll comes as Project 2025 has become a consistent talking point as House Democrats have warned against it, recently launching a task force to start fighting the proposal and stop it from becoming a reality if Trump is reelected.
Representative Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, unveiled “The Stop Project 2025 Task Force” in June as it is composed of about half a dozen Democratic lawmakers. The group, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, aims to brief fellow lawmakers about the project by holding a forum on Capitol Hill and informing voters about its ideas.
At this month’s presidential debate in Philadelphia, Harris spoke about Project 2025 as she continued to associate Trump with its controversial policy proposals.
“What you’re going to hear tonight is a detailed and dangerous plan called Project 2025 that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected to again,” the vice president said at the September 10 debate.
Trump, however, again stated that he has “nothing to do with Project 2025,” adding, “I haven’t read it. I don’t want to read it, purposely. I’m not going to read it.”
On her website, Harris released her administration’s policy positions in which she contrasted her platform with “Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda.” The page is divided into four sections titled: “Build an Opportunity Economy and Lower Costs for Families,” “Safeguard Our Fundamental Freedoms,” “Ensure Safety and Justice for All,” and “Keep America Safe, Secure and Prosperous.”
Meanwhile, with just a month-and-a-half until Election Day, Sunday’s NBC News poll finds Harris with a 5-point lead over Trump among registered voters, 49 to 44 percent.
While other polls show the two neck-and-neck as the closeness of the race is evident in key battleground states, where Harris and Trump are separated by less than a percentage point in several instances. This contest has energized both parties’ bases and intensified the focus on undecided voters, who could prove key to securing Electoral College success in battleground states.
Update 9/22/24, 5:09 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.