Polling On The Washington Commanders

On July 20, President Trump reiterated his call for the Washington Commanders™ to change their name back to the Washington Redskins, this time by threatening a proposed DC stadium deal if the change is not made. The next day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added, “If you actually poll this issue with sports fans across the country, and even in this city, people actually do support the president’s position on this.” Is this what the polls show? Two new polls, both conducted by YouGov, provide an indication of national sentiment and earlier polls gave us the hometown perspective of DC-area residents. Polls also provided the views of Native Americans. Reviewing the new polls reminded me how controversial the polling of Native Americans was, starting with a Harris survey for Sports Illustrated in 2002.

Later, in 2004, the Annenberg School for Public Policy, as part of its National Election Study, asked self-identified Native Americans whether they found the name The Washington Redskins “offensive.” Ninety percent did not, and 9% did. In a 2016 Washington Post poll asking the same question, 90% of Native Americans once again said they did not consider it offensive. Additionally, according to the Post, “[M]

ore than 7 in 10 [Native Americans] said they did not feel the word ‘Redskin’ was disrespectful to Indians. An even higher number — 8 in 10 — said they would not be offended if a non-native called them that name.”

Scholars, tribal organizations, and other activists questioned virtually every aspect of these polls from their methodology (there are challenges to surveying a rare population such as Native Americans) to the wording of the questions. A 2020 poll from the University of Michigan and Berkeley found that 48% of Native Americans found it offensive while 38% did not.

After The Commanders name was adopted in 2022, the Washington Post and the Schar School at George Mason University conducted three separate polls of DC-area residents about the new name. In 2022 and 2024 the surveyors found that nearly half of the residents disliked or hated the new name. In their 2025 poll, taken soon after a strong season by the team, DC-area residents seemed to have warmed to the name — half gave the positive response while 36% still gave the negative one.

The new YouGov polls find a soft preference for the old name. When the University of Massachusetts July national poll asked respondents about changing the name of the Washington Commanders back to the Washington Redskins , 34% supported the change, and 28% opposed it. A substantial 38% neither supported or opposed the idea.

The Economist’s poll, taken in early August found that 45% preferred the Redskins name for the team, while 35% favored the Commanders. Twenty percent were not sure. There were partisan differences, with more Democrats (56%) than Republicans (11%) preferring the Commanders’ name. There were also education differences. People with more formal education preferred the new name. Young people often lead change, and they were more likely than older ones to prefer the Commanders. There were even intraparty age differences with younger Democrats preferring the new name and older Democrats the old one. The patterns, the Economist said, were similar for the GOP respondents. (This poll also asked about the Cleveland Guardians, whose name was changed from the Cleveland Indians, with similar results.)

The terms we use change over time for various reasons, and studying how and when we change our minds is a particularly fascinating aspect of public opinion. In a 1969 Gallup question, most blacks preferred the term Negro over colored people or black. In a Gallup question asked seven times between 1991 and 2019, around two-thirds of blacks said they had no preference between “African American” and “black.” Of the remainder, blacks were closely split between the two. A number of polls, including Gallup’s, show that “Hispanic” is preferred to “Latino/a” in the diverse Hispanic community. A new push to use “Latine” seems unlikely to catch fire any time soon, if at all.

The polls cited here are all snapshots in time. Attitudes change, but it isn’t surprising that many people still like the old name of a storied football team. The 38% of people in the University of Massachusetts’ poll who neither supported nor opposed changing the name back to the Redskins may suggest that many people just aren’t interested in the controversy any more. As football season gets underway, many fans appear ready to move on and just want the team to have a winning season.