When Americans bite their tongues: The Argument polls free speech attitudes

Also, Trump and Harris voters agree: Epstein was murdered

Should white supremacists get to give speeches on campus? How about Benjamin Netanyahu? A Palestinian statehood activist who calls for the abolition of Israel? And what kind of views would people tolerate in private, compared to what they’d accept in public?

In The Argument’s first poll, we tried to test American voters’ commitment to free speech (we also tested voters’ views on the death of Jeffrey Epstein, because you know we had to¹).

Breathless coverage on whether a party is up or down by two percentage points misses something major: how do people think?

Pundits have spent a solid decade butting heads over “cancel culture,” and now the Trump administration is using the arm of the state to silence critics. Neither party is a consistent free-speech defender, but what do their voters think?

They’re not that consistent either. A few stylized facts from our poll:

• Nearly 50% of Trump voters would oppose a transgender rights activist speaking on campus.

• Nearly 55% of Harris voters would oppose Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving a talk.

• Over 67% of Trump voters would oppose a Palestinian activist who calls for the abolition of Israel.

• Nearly 47% of Harris voters would say no to someone who opposes same-sex marriage.

How about political endorsements? It turns out that majorities on both sides are comfortable with celebrities and other sorts of authority figures backing a political candidate — conservatives are a bit less so. For instance:

• Nearly 71% of Trump voters say professional athletes should be allowed by their employers to endorse a candidate for office, compared with 86% of Harris voters.

• Nearly 57% of Trump voters say college professors should be able to endorse, compared with 75% of Harris voters.

On the other hand, voters on the left appear to be far more comfortable with ending personal relationships based on differences in beliefs. Just over 40% of Kamala Harris voters say that it’s sometimes acceptable to cut off family members for different political views, and nearly half of them say it’s acceptable to do this with friends. This stands in contrast to 82% of American voters who believe that it’s never OK to cut off contact with a family member for having opposing political views, and the 75% of American voters who believe the same about friends.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that Harris voters are much more tolerant of beliefs they don’t like in the public square than they are in private life. That by itself isn’t inconsistent. It makes sense to have a different standard for someone giving a speech at your college than for your homophobic grandfather.

But this logic is actually somewhat unique to the left — and only around a third of the nation’s electorate actually voted for Kamala Harris. Most of the people in this country don’t share this alignment, and they don’t treat politics as central to their community interactions in the way that many of us do. (In a sense, that also explains why Democrats have begun to enjoy such a commanding edge among engaged voters, because if you view something as central to your identity, you are also more likely to go out of your way to take actions for it.)

This is not to say that Republicans are immune to their own forms of partisan polarization. For instance, it’s obvious that when it comes to free speech, people across the board are inclined to allow the speech they agree with and disallow what they don’t. We don’t think it’s a coincidence that Trump voters are significantly less likely than Harris voters to believe that university professors should be allowed to publicly express support for a presidential candidate.

As voters have come to accept the age of Trump as the new normal, the social and cultural landscape has also shifted. That includes the “cancel culture” fear of the past, where conservatives often said they couldn’t speak out about their beliefs due to fear of ostracism. Today, our poll finds that it’s Democratic voters who are actually slightly more likely to fear and refrain from expressing political opinions in front of their families and employers, though Trump voters are still a touch more likely to hold back around their friends.

Of course, no survey in modern American psephology² is complete without measuring partisanship and voting intention. Ours is no different. We find that Democrats are leading the generic ballot by 2.5 percentage points — though this lead shrinks to 1.4 percentage points after pushing undecided voters. This comes despite Trump’s approvals being underwater by 10 percentage points.

I’m in the “optimist camp” on this for Democrats. In off-cycle years, voters tend to sour on the incumbent party. The out party is motivated to make their voices heard, independents want a check on the president’s power, and public opinion turns against the president’s party as the election nears — and it’s only August 2025 right now. This acceleration against the incumbent party tends to happen with time, and usually happens regardless of who is president, barring a black swan event like Lewinskygate or 9/11. (Recall that at this point in the Obama and Biden presidencies, Democrats led in the generic ballot.)

But if you think it’s a problem that Democrats are up by “only” three points despite Trump being underwater by 10, you may also worry about the party’s leadership not finding a credible figure to rally around. The Democratic Party has a worse image on net than the Republican Party does, and two of the most prominent Democrats in America today — Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — found their approval ratings deeply underwater. (Though the same can be said for Trump and JD Vance).

Full survey results and methodology notes