Slightly more than half, 52 percent, of the congressional aides expressed disapproval in responding to CNCT’s recent survey of opinion on how populism is perceived among Hill staffers.

But dig a little deeper into the results and some interesting contrasts are seen. Among GOP staffers, for example, approval of populism reached 65 percent, compared to only 26 percent of Democrats. Similarly, a majority of males, 53 percent, expressed approval, while only 39 percent of women did so.

Among Hill aides expressing disapproval of populism, the splits look like this: Fully 74 percent of Democrats turned thumbs down, while just 35 percent of the GOPers did so. And a big majority, 70 percent, of staffers over the age of 30 expressed disapproval, versus 54 percent of those under 30.

One of the challenges in seeking to measure opinion among Hill aides on a topic like populism is the fact there are multiple understandings of what populism is, on both the Left and the Right of the political spectrum.

In today’s political context, however, it’s likely that former President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement is what most respondents had in mind when responding to the CNCT survey.

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