Republican congressional leaders, fiscally conservative groups and media, and Sarah Palin have decried the Carrier deal President-elect Donald Trump heralded last week as a corporate shakedown and terrible example of "crony capitalism," but the American public is on board, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll released Tuesday. Announcing the deal, in which Carrier keeps some 800 jobs in Indiana that had been slated to go to Mexico in return for $7 million in state financial incentives, "was big for Trump," says Morning Consult's Kyle Dropp. "Rarely do we see numbers that high when looking at how specific messages and events shape public opinion."
Trump's overall favorability numbers did not change much from last week's online survey — 47 percent of voters said they view him favorably, 46 percent unfavorably — but 60 percent of respondents (including 87 percent of Republicans) said the Carrier deal gave them a more favorable view of Trump, versus 29 percent who said it made them view Trump less favorably. A quarter of respondents had heard nothing about the Carrier deal. And majorities of respondents, including large majorities of Republicans, said it was appropriate for presidents and vice presidents to directly negotiate with private businesses, and offer financial incentives and government contracts to individual companies to keep jobs in the U.S.
The poll respondents were less enamored of Trump's prolific and controversial tweets, with a 56 percent majority saying Trump uses Twitter too much and a 49 percent plurality saying his Twitter usage is a "bad thing" (23 percent said it is a "good thing"). Morning Consult conducted the survey online with 1,401 registered voters last Thursday and Friday; it has a margin of error of ±3 percentage points.