After a full week of overly effusive praise, I expected polls to show increased support for Reagan appearing on U.S. currency, as many congressional Republicans are proposing. It turns out, as my friend Poppy noticed, that the opposite is true.
Ronald Reagan may be missed, but the idea of honoring him on currently occupied currency doesn’t add up for most Americans.
By 54 percent to 36 percent, most people oppose replacing Alexander Hamilton’s portrait on the $10 bill with Reagan’s. And 59 percent oppose another proposal, ousting Franklin D. Roosevelt from the dime to make way for Reagan.
The good news for GOP partisans is that support for putting Reagan on the dime has doubled over the last year, no doubt thanks to the positive press coverage of the last week. The bad news is that backing doubled to just 31%, hardly a groundswell of support.
The internals showed that even Republicans aren’t crazy about the dime idea. While Dems prefer keeping FDR on the dime by a wide margin (69%-21%), Republicans agree, but by a smaller margin (51%-42%).
The poll didn’t ask respondents about other GOP measures to rename the Pentagon after Reagan, and place his face on Mt. Rushmore, the 50-cent piece, and the $20 bill, but I suspect the results would be the same.