Democrats’ favorite sales pitch for President Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending package is its popularity, but experts warn good poll numbers rarely equate to automatically good policy — especially when the federal government is cutting checks willy-nilly.
“The American Rescue Plan, I believe and, according to the polling data, the vast majority of Americans believe, is essential to giving them some help,” Biden said Friday during a White House roundtable discussion on his proposed massive package.
The White House, congressional Democrats, and their network of allies have repeatedly brought up those very polls in emails, interviews, and press conferences when stumping for the spending plan.
Amid the White House sales job, Republicans are missing an opportunity to remind the public that strong polling doesn’t necessarily equate to strong policy, according to party strategists.
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The coordinated Democratic message has depended on convenient polling, such as Morning Consult numbers released this week that found 77% of people backed Biden’s package, including 3 in 5 Republican voters. The aim? To portray the GOP as being out-of-touch for not endorsing it.
Republicans should be “out there” making substantive arguments against Biden’s package, Lanhee Chen, policy director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 Republican presidential campaign, told the Washington Examiner. Some arguments that have emerged include the package’s appropriation of $60 billion for schools to spend in fiscal years 2024-2028.
“I actually think that Democrats may come to regret ramming this legislation through as they have,” Chen said, alluding to the budget process known as reconciliation that allowed Democrats to sidestep bipartisan negotiations.
The package “as a whole” may be “overwhelmingly popular,” but that doesn’t mean “every element of it is,” according to Whit Ayres, president of North Star Opinion Research.
“I’ll bet if you ask people, ‘Do you support or oppose giving government stimulus checks to couples earning $200,000 per year?,’ you’d get substantial opposition,” Ayres wrote in an email. “Same with ‘Do you support or oppose giving taxpayer dollars to state governments that have generated a surplus during the pandemic?'”
Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group agreed “the devil’s in the details” with the package. But Republicans faced “cross-pressures” because former President Donald Trump had called for more generous provisions, including $2,000 stimulus checks, he said.
“I think the best you can do is try to make sure that the money that’s being appropriated is well spent,” he noted, adding: “It doesn’t mean they’re not laying the groundwork for, OK, if more is needed down the road, if we had perhaps spent it at all the right places, maybe there’d be more availability to continue to supplement those in need.”
Though Biden’s package is on the precipice of clearing Congress, there’s still time for Republicans to change their strategy. While the Senate is expected to finish amending the House version before returning it to that chamber this weekend, if more liberal House Democrats refuse to vote for the revised iteration, it would then be referred to conference.
Although the package is popular now, there’s no guarantee it will retain its high approval rating. Emerson College Polling Director Spencer Kimball cited initial unity behind former President Bill Clinton’s 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and his Defense of Marriage Act two years later were examples.
“There is a cemetery of bad policies that were based on the public opinion at the moment,” he said. “Remember, a poll is a snapshot in time, but attitudes change with time as well, which is why it is better to be of principle and use polls to highlight areas of agreement as opposed to allowing polls to drive the policy.”
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Marquette Law School Poll Director Charles Franklin was less dismissive of public approval, believing it should matter in a republic “for normative and electoral reasons.” Lawmakers “may choose to oppose the majority, but polling helps make it clear where the majority stands,” he said.
Instead, Franklin cautioned against labeling policies “good” or “bad” because it was almost impossible “in an absolute sense.”
“Maybe it raises taxes, but [it] balances the budget or rebuilds national defense,” he said.
