Orlando Sentinel/Getty Images
- GOP voters aren't as concerned with wokeness as some GOP candidates might think, a new poll suggests.
- Some GOP presidential hopefuls built careers on anti-wokeness, but that's not the priority of most voters.
- If given a choice, most GOP voters polled by NYT and Sienna College chose a "law and order" candidate.
Some GOP candidates and lawmakers have assembled like a crime-fighting cartoon squad ready to take on woke-ism.
The problem? Voters don't really care as much about tackling "woke" issues as Republican candidates may think, new polling suggests.
In fact, more GOP voters favored candidates who focused on law and order, a new New York Times and Siena College poll of Americans, with emphasis in Iowa — where voters will be the first to cast their ballots in the primaries.
About 65% of those Republicans polled said they would prefer the latter candidate, the Times reported.
The poll surveyed 1,329 registered voters nationwide, including an oversample of 818 registered Republican voters, according to the Times. It was conducted in English and Spanish by phone from July 23 to 27.
Less than a quarter of Republican voters polled said they would prioritize choosing a "candidate who focuses on defeating radical 'woke' ideology in our schools, media and culture" over one who "focuses on restoring law and order in our streets and at the border."
"I don't like the term 'woke,'" former president and current 2024 GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said recently in a jab at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, per the Times. "It's just a term they use — half the people can't even define it, they don't know what it is."
Indeed, presidential candidate DeSantis, who has been in a year-long battle with the Walt Disney Company, built a reputation on challenging "woke" policies and companies. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy followed a similar strategy, releasing a book called "Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam," prior to his candidacy.
But the social culture pandering might not be worth it in terms of wooing voters.
Christy Boyd, a 55-year-old from Pennsylvania, told the Times that she doesn't see why government officials should be involved in some issues. She specifically mentioned Disney, as well as the conservative boycott of Bud Light following the company's brief association with a transgender influencer.
"If you don't like what Bud Light did, don't buy it," Boyd told the Times. "If you don't like what Disney is doing, don't go. That's not the government's responsibility."