47% Favor Candidate Who Raises Taxes on Wealthy Over One Who Opposes All Tax Increases

More voters support a candidate who plans to raise taxes for the wealthiest Americans over one who promises to oppose all tax increases.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% of Likely Voters say they’d vote for a candidate who would raise taxes only on the rich rather than one who promised to oppose all tax increases.  Thirty-eight percent (38%) favor a candidate who opposes all tax increases, while another 15% are not sure.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The latest findings show little change from last month.  From July 2008 to February 2010, voters were evenly divided on which type of candidate they’d vote for.  Support for a candidate who opposes all tax increases steadily rose in 2010 peaking at 54% just before the mid-term elections.  For most of this year, however, voters have supported raising taxes on the rich. 

Still, 50% of voters say, generally speaking, tax increases hurt the economy.  But that’s the lowest level measured in just over two-years of regular tracking.  Twenty-three percent (23%) say tax increases help economic conditions in the country, while 10% say they have no impact.  Another 17% are undecided. 

Thirty-one percent (31%) believe their personal taxes will go up under the Obama administration.   That’s down five points from last month and the lowest level measured since March 2009.  Only seven percent (7%) think their taxes will go down under Obama, while 48% say they’ll stay about the same.  Fourteen percent (14%) are not sure. 

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on October 6-7, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.