On July 20, President Trump reiterated his call for Washington’s Commanders ™ to change their name back to Washington Redskins, this time threatening a proposed DC Stadium deal if the change is not made. The next day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added, “If he really published this issue with sports fans across the country, even in this city, people really support the president’s position on it.” Is that what the polls show? Two new polls, both of which were conducted by Yougov, provide a sign of national emotion and previous polls gave us the prospect of the homeland of the DC residents. The polls also provided the opinions of indigenous Americans. The review of the new polls reminded me how controversial the poll of the native Americans was, starting with a Harris study on Sports Illustrated in 2002.
Later, in 2004, the Annenberg Public Policy SchoolIn the context of her national electoral study, she asked the self -proclaimed local Americans if they found Washington’s “offensive” name Redskins. Ninety percent didn’t do it 9%. To one 2016 Washington Post Poll Asking the same question, 90% of native Americans said once again that they did not consider it offensive. In addition, according to the position, “[M]
ore from 7 to 10 [Native Americans] He said that they did not feel that the word “redskin” was disrespectful to the Indians. An even higher number-8 in 10-stated that they would not be offended if a non-native name calls this name. ”
Scholars, racial organizations and other activists have virtually challenged every aspect of these polls from their methodology (there are challenges to detect a rare population such as native Americans) in the formulation of questions. A 2020 poll by The University of Michigan and Berkeley found it that 48% of indigenous Americans found it offensive while 38% did not.
After adopting the name of the commanders in 2022, The Washington Post and Schar School in George Mason The university conducted three separate polls in the DC area on the new name. In 2022 and 2024 the inspectors found that almost half of the residents did not like or hated the new name. To them 2025 The poll, which was taken shortly after a strong era from the team, residents of the DC seemed to be warm in the name-half gave the positive response, while 36% still gave the negative.
The new Yougov polls find a soft preference for the old name. When the University of Massachusetts July national poll He asked respondents to change the name of Washington’s commanders back to Washington Redskins, 34% supported the change and 28% opposed it. A significant 38% neither supported nor opposed the idea.
THE Economistreceived in early August found that 45% preferred the name Redskins for the team, while 35% favored the commanders. Twenty percent were not sure. There were deforming differences, with more democrats (56%) than Republicans (11%) prefer the name of the commanders. There were also educational differences. People with more formal education preferred the new name. Young people often lead the change and were more likely than the elderly to prefer commanders. There were still Differences With the younger Democrats who prefer the new name and the greatest democrats. The standards, the economist said, were similar to GOP respondents. (This poll also asked Cleveland’s Guardians, whose name was changed by Cleveland’s Indians, with similar results.)
The terms we use over time change for a variety of reasons and the study of how and when we change our minds are a particularly exciting aspect of public opinion. In a 1969 Gallup question, most blacks preferred the term Negro over colored people or black. To one Erotic question Asked seven times between 1991 and 2019, about two -thirds of blacks said they had no preference between “African Americans” and “Black”. From the rest, the blacks were closely separated between the two. Some polls, including Gallup, show that “Spanish” is preferred by “Latino/A” in the different Spanish community. A new push for “latine” use seems unlikely to catch a fire soon, if not at all.
The polls mentioned here are all snapshots in time. Attitudes change, but it is not surprising that many people still like the old name of a football team story. 38% of people in the poll of the University of Massachusetts, who have neither supported nor opposed the change of name back to Redskins, may indicate that many people are simply not interested in the dispute anymore. As the football season is in progress, many fans seem ready to move on and just want the team to have a season win.
