What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending October 14, 2017

One hallmark of the Trump administration has been its untangling and elimination of federal regulations, especially those imposed throughout the Obama administration.  Among the regulations being eliminated are those stemming from the Paris climate agreement, which President Trump is walking away from.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is rolling back a regulation that requires a big drop in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 2030, but most voters think they shouldn’t be allowed to make such calls without the approval of Congress. 

Although they would prefer to keep that regulation in place and are less concerned now about the costs involved in implementing the requirements, voters are still torn on the impact it will have on fighting global warming.  

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Meanwhile, the economy has been energized since Trump’s election in November, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is still pushing into record territory. 

For the first time in eight years of tracking, more than half of homeowners see a rising home value in their future.

At the end of the previous week, the overall Rasmussen Reports Economic Index for October had risen two points to 129.2, continuing to show the highest level of economic confidence since this tracking began in 2014. 

Still, voters are evenly divided over whether Trump or President Obama is responsible for the current economic boom but continue to have a lot more economic faith in themselves than in the man in the White House.

Also, some Republicans are not seeing Trump as a major asset on the campaign trail, and voters in general think support for the president's agenda is more likely to hurt rather than help a congressional incumbent. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has recently been the butt of considerable Republican scorn, and a senior House Democrat said last week that it was time for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to step down. But only a fifth of Democrats think her departure would be a good idea. 

Polarization among today’s voters is glaringly apparent when they are asked whether the U.S. Constitution should be changed or left alone, with support for the Constitution at its lowest level in a decade.

The wound to the national psyche continued to fester after the so-far inexplicable mass shooting in Las Vegas, which Trump called “an act of pure evil,” while many of his opponents were instead trying to blame the guns involved. Americans strongly agree that there is evil in this world but tend to believe society, not the individual, is to blame.

Seventy-four percent (74%) believe most politicians raise gun-related issues not to address real problems but to get elected. Among voters who favor more gun control, 40% think it is possible for the government to confiscate all privately owned guns in America.

While the political debates about stricter gun control rage following the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, we take a moment to remember the victims of the October 1 Mandalay Bay Massacre in Las Vegas in this week's Rasmussen Minute.

In other surveys last week:

-- Trump has repeatedly called out National Football League team owners in the partially tax-subsidized league for allowing player protests during the national anthem. Americans aren’t convinced that team owners have the right to order their players not to protest, but they don’t support the tax breaks the league is receiving.

-- As this year’s Nobel Prize winners are being announced, including last week’s Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, most Americans aren’t are paying attention and are evenly split over whether it’s the most prestigious award one can win.

-- Support for Columbus Day, celebrated nationally on Monday, is at its highest level in several years, but a sizable number of Americans are ready to replace it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, an idea that’s already caught on in a number of places around the country.

-- Thirty-two percent (32%) of Likely U.S. Voters now think the country is heading in the right direction. 

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