NPR/Marist/PBS poll: 6/10 Americans against removal of Confederate Statues

[AN63093]

Excluding for the South does move the numbers, but a majority still against removal:

                     For-Against-Unsure
Northeast     53-33-14
Midwest        61-29-10
South            66-23-11
West             61-27-11

Only a slight difference by gender:

Men              63-26-11
Women        61-28-11

Some difference by age, but much less you may think:

18-29           60-30-11
30-44           60-28-12
45-59           63-27-10
>60              66-23-11

[AN63093]

From what you have heard or seen about each of the following do you mostly agree or mostly disagree with their beliefs: Antifa?

Mostly agree, Mostly disagree, No opinion, Unsure

5-24-18-53

Among strong Dems:

9-20-19-52

Blacks:

5-31-19-45


Suggesting that most people don't really know about the group, but once they learn about it, the favorable group is extremely low.  The numbers for outright support are actually even lower than the Alt-Right, but are higher than white nationalists.

White nationalists get 73% opposed nation-wide, Alt-Right is only 48%.  6% nation-wide support the Alt-Right.  The highest number is among the 18-29 group (10%).

[AN63093]

Anyways, after posting/combing through some of the geographic results and other questions, my "gut feeling" from this past week was mainly confirmed:

That being, while most people find Trump's response either weak or not very presidential, most people aren't particularly keen on people going around removing the statues, and probably lump all the groups together (whether that be white nationalists, antifa, or what have you) and consider them all violent provocateurs.  The numbers confirm my suspicions that most people probably just don't want to see this sorta thing in the news every night, and aren't drawing fine distinctions between groups.

My advice for Dems then, coming from a "Democrats strategist" perspective then, would be to manage this issue carefully to ensure the right optics:

-Dems will want to focus on condemning Trump's response; not necessarily his comments on the statues (which people agree with), but rather the Dems should stress words like: Trump was "unsympathetic" or "indifferent" to the violence.  Another good line might be, Trump was "being petty" in light of the violence.

-Dems will want to avoid efforts to remove the statues, including Booker's bill about the US capitol.  My suspicion, which seems mostly supported by the poll, is that most people don't care about the statues and certainly aren't 'triggered' by their presence or anything.  I suspect most Americans just lump people like Lee, Washington, and so on, all together in one group as "old guys in the history book."  I would be surprised if people even knew the difference.  Maybe between Lee and Washington, but between Lee and a lot of other historical American figures, probably not.  Therefore by persisting on this issue, the Dems give Trump more ammo for his "who's next? Washington?" line.  Whether one agrees with it or not, I think that's a pretty good line for the GOP to strategically demagogue and can probably get most people on their side on that, if Dems keep pushing the issue.  The quicker the Dems drop the issue, the less likely they are to be labeled as the party that wants to "remove the Jefferson Memorial" and so on (doesn't matter if they actually want to or not, this is the meme that will stick the longer the issue stays alive).

-Dems should condemn both white nationalists and Antifa publicly, and then behind the scenes, should also get talking points to the media and tell them to limit the amount of coverage Antifa gets, to as little as is possible, to keep that "no opinion" and "unsure" percentage (that I posted from the poll) as high as possible.