Small Business Owners Feel Disadvantaged When it Comes to the Electoral Process, Support Significant Reforms

Publisher: 
Small Business Majority
Date: 
Thursday, October 30, 2014

Small Business Majority's scientific opinion polling shows small business owners often feel disadvantaged by large corporations and the electoral system overall. They believe our current campaign finance system puts large corporations at a competitive advantage and support significant reforms to level the playing field between small employers and large corporations.

Key Findings

Entrepreneurs believe big businesses have an unfair influence on government decisions and the political process: More than three-fourths (77%) of small employers say big businesses have a significant impact on government decisions and the political process. In comparison, a mere 24% say small businesses have a significant impact on the process.

Entrepreneurs believe big business has significantly more impact over political process than small business

Please rate on scale from 0 to 10 how much of an impact big businesses and small businesses can have on government decisions and the political process. A 10 would mean a significant impact and a 0 would mean not impact at all. You can use any number between 0 and 10.

Small business owners believe we need significant changes to the way election campaigns are financed: 72% of small business owners say major changes are needed to our campaign finance system, with a mere 4% who say no changes are needed.

Small businesses support publicly-financed campaigns: 85% of entrepreneurs support changing the way we finance election campaigns to using only small contributions from voters and a limited amount of public funds. Nearly half (47%) of small businesses strongly favor this provision.

Small employers overwhelmingly believe we need more transparency from special interest groups that finance election campaigns: A vast 93% of small business owners support requiring special interest groups that use paid TV and mail ads during elections to publicly disclose where their money comes from; seven in 10 say they strongly favor this.

Small businesses view money's role in politics negatively

Please indicate whether you would favor or oppose the following steps to improve our democracy and the way elections are conducted: Requiring special interest groups that use paid TV and mail ads during elections to publicly disclose where their money comes from.

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