A Napolitan News survey of 4,083 voters in September found that, given a choice between 4 candidates of equal skill and temperament, 27% would prefer a candidate who advocated policies like President Trump's. That is down a point from August, and the lowest monthly total since this question began being asked in 2020.

The Four Way Breakdown

A fuller breakdown looks like this:

Trump-like policies: 27% of voters prefer a candidate with policies like the current president.

Traditional GOP policies: 21% of voters prefer more traditional GOP policies. That is identical to August.

AOC-like policies: 21% favor Progressive policies like those of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. That is up 2 points from August.

Traditional Dem policies: In 2nd place, 22% prefer a candidate with more traditional Democratic policies, identical to August.

Historical Trends

Since 2020, a plurality of voters have always prefered Trump-like policies. However, support fell each continually from a high of 37% in June 2025 until it reached 28% for the first time in April and May of this year. After a temporary lull, support for policies like President Trump's has now reached a new low of 27%.

During this time, support trickled up for the traditional wings of both parties, with Traditional Democratic policies peaking at 25% in May. Support for AOC-like policies has stayed stagnant, consistently at 19% or 20%. This is the first time it has topped 20% since May of 2025.

The False Rise of Progressives

Many in the political bubble are concerned with the "rise" of Democratic Socialism as candidates like Zohran Mamdani take office. However, the more voters learn about DSA platforms, the less enthusiastic they are.

Our 4-Way Choice History bears this out. In every monthly survey since AOC was used in place of Bernie Sanders*, more voters have supported traditional Democratic policies over their Progressive counterpart. Similarly, AOC has consistently polled slightly lower than Sanders did.

*Since 2020, we have asked this question, but about a candidate supporting Bernie Sanders' policies, rather than AOC's. August of 2025 was the first complete month using AOC in place of Sanders.

When we started this series in 2020, Bernie Sanders was the leading voice of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Now, AOC has taken on that role. It is appropriate, therefore, to make changes to our question wording to reflect that reality. The change from Bernie Sanders to AOC had no impacct on Trump and Traditional GOP figures.