Small business owners indicated they are are not satisfied with the candidates for president, nor overly optimistic about the future state of their businesses in a recent survey commissioned by Sage, the accounting, payroll and payment systems software company.

See also on SmallBusiness.com |For a different twist on measuring the political leanings of small business owners and managers, see: “The Political Leanings of Small Business | 2016″

Dissatisfaction with candidate choices

49% | “Fairly dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” with presidential candidate choices

What former president, living or not, the respondents would want to serve again

28% | Ronald Reagan
15% | Bill Clinton
13% | John Kennedy

Political party to which they self-identified themselves

34% | Democrats
25% | Republicans
25% | Independents

The survey also asked questions to measure the business owners’ outlooks toward the economy in general

Pessimistic about the present

23% | Plan to invest in new technology in 2016
32% | Plan to cut expenses in 2016
49% | Think the economy in 2016 will be the same as 2015

Pessimistic about the future

32% | Expect higher taxation (after the election)
19% | Expect more government regulation
35% | Expect increasingly competitive environment

The survey was administered by Qualtrics to 301 Sage customers across the U.S. in early June 2016. All respondents were small business owners, founders and presidents with 1-50 employees.

Photos via WikiMedia Commons | CC BY-SA 4.0 | Clinton by George Skidmore, Trump by BU Rob13