Who would win an election today? Is America a racist nation?

SALT LAKE CITY — Americans are split on whether to vote Democrat or Republican in the next election, and they are also split on whether the country is racist, says an expert who has his finger on the pulse of the nation.

Scott Rasmussen is a US political analyst, digital media entrepreneur and author of “The Sun is Still Rising: Politics Has Failed But America Will Not.”

Who would you vote for today?

Rasmussen said 41% of registered voters nationwide said they would vote for a Democrat from their district, 40% would vote for the Republican, 6% said they would vote for somebody else and the rest aren’t sure.

“The thing that really interests me and what I’d love to get your take on, Scott, is the Independents. Nobody’s really winning that space. They’re pretty evenly divided as well,” Boyd said.

“We know historically that when a Democrat is in the White House, over time, the number of people identifying as Democrat begins to diminish,” Rasmussen said. “Also along the way with a Democrat in the White House, the number of Independents become more Republican.”

GOP unity growing

“Republicans are growing more and more united. . . . Last month, only 85% of Republican voters said they would vote for the Republican from their district — that’s up to 91%. . . . And so all the polling suggests Republicans have a lot more enthusiasm at this early part of the race than do Democrats,” Rasmussen said.

Critical race theory

“There’s been a debate on Utah’s Capitol Hill around critical race theory, and in particular, when that becomes curriculum, not just a theory. . . . which you’ve written about extensively, but you also did some polling around this in terms of how voters view America in terms of a nation,” Boyd said.

Is America a racist nation?

“We’ve asked people, basically, is America a racist nation? . . . Right now, Americans are fairly evenly split, 46% say yes to that question,” Rasmussen said. “But then here’s the thing that we lose and the nuance of that question: What do you do about it?

“Among the people who say that America is racist, there’s a small group . . . about 20% of all voters who say what we really need to do is acknowledge that the nation was founded on principles of racism and white supremacy [and] ditch those ideals and start over,” Rasmussen said.

He added that about 22% [of voters] also say America is racist but the country is making progress. Another group, also about 22%, says racism was once a much bigger issue but it has since faded.

“About two of three Americans say, yes, racism is still a reality. We are making some progress, but we need to pursue America’s founding ideals to address that problem,” Rasmussen said.

Are US ideals are worth the fight?

“That’s exactly what I was gonna ask you next, Scott, is in terms of the solution to that,” Boyd said. “This idea that the best way to unite the nation, the best way to overcome prejudice or discrimination or injustice is in our founding ideals.”

“That’s something people are generally comfortable with. They recognize that, again, we’re not perfect, we’re not pure as a nation. We have made mistakes, some of them horrific, but the founding ideals were noble. The founding ideals are worth reaching for. And, you know, we’ll never get there completely because we are human, after all. But the more we move towards those ideals, the less problems we’ll have in some of these other areas,” Rasmussen said.

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