Poll: Voters prefer Warren’s wealth tax to Ocasio-Cortez’s 70 percent rate

A survey released Monday found that a wealth tax proposal from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) garnered more support from voters than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) plan to create a new top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans.

Warren, who has announced an exploratory committee for president, recently proposed an annual tax of 2 percent on a household’s wealth between $50 million and $1 billion, and a 3 percent tax on household net worth that exceeds $1 billion.

{mosads}Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old freshman from New York, has floated creating a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent on income over $10 million.

In a new Morning Consult/Politico survey, 61 percent of registered voters said they supported a wealth tax with the parameters Warren laid out, while in a separate polling question 45 percent of voters said they favored the tax that’s in line with Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal.

Twenty percent of respondents said they opposed Warren’s idea, and 19 percent said they didn’t know or didn’t have an opinion.

For Ocasio-Cortez’s plan, 32 percent of respondents were opposed to it and 23 percent didn’t know or had no opinion.

The wealth-tax proposal was supported by almost three-quarters of Democratic respondents, 56 percent of independents and half of Republicans.

The 70 percent rate proposal received support from 60 percent of Democrats, 42 percent of independents and 31 percent of Republicans.

The proposals from Warren and Ocasio-Cortez come as progressives are emphasizing a need to raise taxes on the wealthy, both to reduce inequality and to raise revenue to offset the cost of new spending programs. The issue of how much to tax the rich has been a major topic of conversation in the early days of the 2020 presidential contest.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who may enter the Democratic presidential primary, recently offered a proposal to tax the rich more, focused on expanding the estate tax. 

Billionaires who might enter the presidential race have criticized the proposals from Warren and Ocasio-Cortez.

The Morning Consult/Politico survey found widespread support for increasing taxes on the rich. Seventy-six percent of respondents said the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes, while 18 percent disagreed with that approach.

Morning Consult and Politico surveyed 1,993 registered voters online from Feb. 1-2. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.