According to a recent survey by Manta, 61% of small business owners plan to vote for Mitt Romney. Only 21% plan to vote for Barack Obama.
This comes as no surprise. Study after study shows that the majority of small business owners are Republicans. Our own work over the years has been pretty consistent on this topic. We find about 60% of small business owners are Republicans or lean Republican.
The Manta survey found that the key political issues for small business owners are health care (21 percent), tax policy (20 percent) and government regulation (16 percent).
This is similar to the results of a recent NFIB study, which listed health care as the #1 problem facing small business. Government regulation came in 5th and taxes 6th. BTW, this understates how small business owners feel about taxes - it is listed in 5 of the top 10 problems.
Both parties try hard to look like they support small business. But on the political issues small business owners care about (taxes and regulation), the Republican party is simply more aligned.
We often interview small business owners that used to be Democrats, but switched once they started a small business. We rarely interview small business owners that have gone the other way.
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