On September 27, The New York Times revealed an extensive investigation which claimed Trump had paid just $1500 in federal income tax across 2016 and 2017.

On top of that, they reported that Trump is struggling financially and in a lot of debt.

The story kickstarted a huge online discussion of the topic. From September 27 – 30 2020, our Consumer Research platform found 725k people and news articles mentioning Trump’s tax returns online, with 62% of these posts being negative. The original New York Times piece saw 5.5m social shares and engagements alone, according to BuzzSumo.

Trump’s taxes have been a matter of speculation for years, particularly as he is the first president since Gerald Ford to not release tax returns. While there is no legal requirement to do so, Trump has bucked a 46-year precedent.

But what do voters think of the issue?

We checked it out using Brandwatch Qriously, surveying 3,136 American adults from October 1 – 4 2020. The results came from the 2,048 respondents who say they are likely to vote or have already voted by mail in November’s election. (After weighting, this is 54.4% of the overall sample).

Our survey found that 63% of likely voters see a presidential candidate releasing their tax returns as important or very important. In comparison, 22% said it was not very important or not important.

It’s pretty clear cut which way voters are leaning as a whole, but here’s how it splits out by voting intention.