Poll: Democratic voters prefer "populism" over "abundance"

On the economic front, some elected officials, like Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), want to embrace a version of the "abundance" agenda that liberal writers Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson lay out in a new book titled (ahem) "Abundance."

• Klein gave voice to the abundance argument at a policy retreat for Senate Democrats this month.

Other party leaders want to focus their energy on challenging President Trump on the populist front.

• Think of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, trying to dare Republicans to vote against tax cuts for billionaires.

Driving the news: The survey of 1,200 registered voters by Demand Progress, a progressive advocacy organization, was designed to supply some hard data for the debate.

• It defined the abundance argument by starting off with this sentence: "The big problem is 'bottlenecks' that make it harder to produce housing, expand energy production, or build new roads and bridges."
• The populist argument was described as "The big problem is that big corporations have way too much power over our economy and our government."

By the numbers: 55.6% of all voters preferred the populist argument, compared to 43.5% who said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who offered the abundance argument.

• Those preferences were even stronger among Democratic and independent voters.
• 72.5% of Democrats reacted positively to the populist argument compared to 39.6% for Republicans. It was 55.4% for independents.
• Given a direct choice, 59% of Democrats preferred the populist argument, compared to just 16.8% liking the abundance one.

The bottom line: "What these voters want is clear: a populist agenda that takes on corporate power and corruption," said Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at Demand Progress.

Methodology: The survey of 1,200 registered voters was conducted on the YouGov platform from May 8 to May 13, 2025. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.09 percentage points.