Most voters don’t want GOP to punish ‘woke’ companies: poll

Voters largely don’t want Congress to punish companies for speaking out on certain social and political issues, according to a Morning Consult poll commissioned by the tech

industry-backed Chamber of Progress and released on Monday.  The survey found that a majority of voters wouldn’t want lawmakers to punish companies for speaking out

against discrimination, openly supporting abortion rights or withholding campaign donations from Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.

House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), have promised to investigate some of the largest U.S. companies over their so-called “woke” politics, referring to

support of the Black Lives Matter movement; environmental, social, and corporate governance, or ESG, investing and abortion access, among other hot-button issues. “While

the Republican effort to punish companies that speak up on social issues might be popular with the far right, it’s completely out of touch with what most voters want to see from

Congress,” Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich told The Hill. “This poll should be a wakeup call for Republicans — no one wants to see them silence the private sector.” 

Seventy-one percent of voters oppose Congress punishing companies that “speak out against discrimination,” including two-thirds of GOP respondents, according to the poll. 

Republicans were enraged when several major companies, including Delta Air Lines and Coca-Cola, spoke out against the Georgia GOP’s voting law that critics said

discriminated against Black voters.