Poll finds few voters in western Montana supportive of Project 2025
If Republican candidates don’t want to talk about the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, they can probably be forgiven because even fewer of their constituents want to hear about it.
In new polling released by the political action committee, House Majority, which seeks to win Democratic seats in the United States House of Representatives, among issues it asked about, Project 2025 has an unfavorable rating, and in some House districts, is nearly universally unpopular.
One of those districts includes Montana’s western Congressional district, which covers about one-third of the western part of the state and counts Missoula and Kalispell among its largest cities.
The poll, which was conducted from July 30 through Aug. 4 by House Majority PAC and includes 1,253 likely voters, showed that Project 2025 in the First Congressional District has only a 10% favorability rating, while it garnered a 46% unfavorable rating.
In the western Congressional race, incumbent Republican Ryan Zinke, a former Donald Trump cabinet member, is again facing Democratic challenger Monica Tranel, an attorney who works in the public utilities sector.
The Heritage Foundation’s creators of Project 2025 have issued a Project 2025 scorecard which compares members of Congress’ voting record and positions on key issues with how they align with the goals of Project 2025. According to them, any score above 60 is a favorable rating. Zinke remains one of the highest scoring members with a 74 Project 2025 rating.
The Daily Montanan reached out to the Zinke campaign about his views on Project 2025, but did not receive an answer. For the most part, Zinke has not addressed the topic of Project 2025 as a whole, but at least six of his fellow Trump cabinet members have ties to the production of Project 2025.
Republicans have fought to distance themselves from the Heritage Foundation’s opus, called Project 2025 but officially titled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” Though Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump claims to know nothing about it, he has endorsed a number of its ideas, which include controversial policy suggestions, for example, eliminating the federal Department of Education. More than 200 of his former staff members have been associated with its creation. Moreover, key members of his leadership team, including advisor Stephen Miller, have created promotional videos for it.
The New York Times recently reported that Trump’s vice presidential pick J.D. Vance praised a 2017 report for the Heritage Foundation that was used as part of the basis for sections on abortion and in vitro fertilization.
In the polling by House Majority PAC, which included questions about other topics, such as housing, reproductive rights and veterans’ benefits, Project 2025 tops the list of negative statements tested. Half (50%) of all those polled had an unfavorable view of Project 2025.
In the poll, more than a quarter of self-identified Republicans (27%) said they had an unfavorable view of Project 2025.