Here’s some potential bad news for the Republican Party ahead of the November midterm elections.
The Affordable Care Act is more popular with voters than the Republican Party’s 2017 tax reform law, according to a Fox News survey released this week.
The poll, which was conducted from Aug. 19 to 21 and sampled 1,009 registered voters, found that 51 percent of respondents hold a favorable view of former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. In contrast, only 40 percent of survey respondents hold a positive view of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
[Trump: Obamacare to be gone ‘pretty soon’]
About 86 percent of respondents also said healthcare was “extremely” or “very important” in determining how they will vote for Congress this fall. A measly 14 percent said healthcare was only somewhat or “not at all” a factor in how they plan to vote.
The survey also found that 50 percent of respondents hold a favorable view of the Democratic Party, while a much smaller 39 percent said the same for the GOP.
The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Democrats need all the help they can get if they want to flip either the House or the Senate or both this November. Public opinion favoring both their party and their landmark healthcare law is exactly the kind thing Democrats need.
[More: Federal watchdog criticizes Trump’s stewardship of Obamacare]
It’s not all bad news for Republicans. If former President Bill Clinton’s unofficial 1992 presidential campaign mantra (“It’s the economy, stupid”) still applies, there are a few bright spots for the GOP in the Fox News survey.
About 49 percent of respondents say they approve of the president’s handling of the economy, compared to the slightly smaller 44 percent who say they disapprove.
About 85 percent of respondents said the economy was either “extremely” or “very important” in determining how they plan to vote in November. Only 14 percent said the economy was somewhat or not at all important for them in the upcoming elections.
There are a few weird takeaways worth mentioning from the survey.
Though 49 percent say they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, 57 percent also say they disapprove of his handling of international trade. Maybe it’s time we have a national conversation about how the two subjects are linked.
Lastly, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., may be the most disliked congressional leader right now (52 percent disapprove, 22 percent approve), but at least he can say people have heard of him. When respondents were asked whether they have “a generally favorable or unfavorable opinion” of Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., an embarrassing 13 percent answered with “never heard of.” In contrast, only 5 percent said they hadn’t heard of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., 5 percent said they hadn’t heard of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and only 8 percent said they hadn’t heard of McConnell.
For a man who loves camera time as much as Schumer (42 percent disapprove, 28 percent approve), the survey’s findings must sting at least a little.
