A new Fox News national poll found that capitalism remains more popular than socialism among registered voters, yet large majorities support raising taxes on the wealthy if the revenue is used to strengthen social programs or help the less fortunate.
Seventy-three percent of respondents said they would support increasing taxes on the wealthy to bolster social programs, and 64 percent said they would back higher taxes to spread wealth to those less fortunate. Support fell to 47 percent for a proposal framed as raising taxes "so that nobody gets to be too rich," while 52 percent opposed that rationale.
The survey, conducted Sept. 6-9, 2025, also probed attitudes toward political ideology and a well-known local political figure. Two-thirds of respondents, 65 percent, said they have an unfavorable view of socialism — the highest level of negativity recorded in several Fox News polls dating to 2019. By contrast, 53 percent viewed capitalism favorably, a decline from a 57 percent favorable rating in 2019.
The poll highlighted sharp partisan and demographic divides on both ideology and tax policy. Majorities of Democrats (89 percent), independents (78 percent) and a majority of Republicans (56 percent) supported raising taxes on the wealthy to strengthen social programs. A majority of Republicans opposed raising taxes on the wealthy to "spread the wealth" or to prevent any one person from becoming too well-off, positions that most Democrats and independents favored.
The survey also examined national views of Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor who has described himself as a democratic socialist and proposed measures to tax wealthy residents to fund affordability efforts. Nationally, Mamdani’s favorable rating was 18 percent versus a 37 percent unfavorable rating, a net negative of 19 points, and 44 percent of voters said they had never heard of him. Familiarity and opinion varied: very liberal voters (44 percent) and Democratic men (34 percent) were most likely to view him positively, while Republicans were most likely to register unfavorable views (54 percent unfavorable). Forty-seven percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents said they had never heard of him.
Subgroup analysis showed the strongest support for capitalism among Republican men (80 percent favorable), voters 65 and older (74 percent), very conservative respondents (71 percent) and those with graduate degrees (70 percent). Skepticism about capitalism was highest among independents, women and Hispanic voters, though each of those groups still favored capitalism over socialism by double-digit margins. Younger voters under 30 registered unfavorable views of both systems, with 61 percent unfavorable toward capitalism and 56 percent unfavorable toward socialism.
The poll was conducted under the direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) and included interviews with 1,004 registered voters randomly selected from a national voter file. Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (119) and cellphones (638) or completed the survey online after receiving a text (247). Fox News reported a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full sample and noted that sampling error is higher for subgroups. The network also cautioned that question wording and order can affect results and that weights were applied for age, race, education and area to better reflect the registered voter population.
The findings underscore a split in public opinion between abstract ideological judgments and support for specific redistributive policies: even as a sizable share of voters expresses unfavorable views of socialism, many simultaneously back higher taxes on the wealthy when framed as a means to strengthen social programs or address inequality.