It's an interesting and important question to follow: how does the public react to the stimulus package and discussion? Actually, despite polling, it's hard to know, and therein is a lesson about "issues" polling.
Pollster.com has a wonderful series of articles about important aspects of polling. Wording can affect the response. Introducing an issue the poll recipient isn't aware of or educated about can change the response. And, in addition to that, asking someone whether we should do something they won't like (like spend money), but needs to be done, will change the response.
To briefly summarize, here are some recent polls on the stimulus, some of which were covered here yesterday:
Pollster Support level (previous where available)
Gallup 52 (53) 2/4
CNN 54 2/7-8
Pew 51 (57) 2/4-8
Rasmussen 37 (42) 2/4
CBS 51 (63) 2/2-4
Rasmussen, repeatedly cited by Republicans, is the clear outlier. As to the importance of wording, CBS' poll changed the question from a "775 billion stimulus package" to an "800 billion bill" and Rasmussen asks a very different "economic recovery package proposed by Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats", introducing the Congressional Dems to the question in the interval between early and late January. Mark Blumenthal covers that in depth here.
Pew is a terrific pollster and read because their in-depth questions always enlighten. First, here are the numbers:
Here, we can see the uneven nature of the support for the stimulus package across different sub-groups:
We can see that moderates (the center of American politics) supports the stimulus 53-31, and most of the opposition is from conservatives. We can see opposition grow the more affluent the respondent.
But the context is important as well. On the whole no one wants to spend this amount of money. However, Americans also see a stimulus package as necessary. In addition, Obama's popularity and handling of the issue is rated very high by voters (multiple polls.) This is why Obama and not Congressional Democrats have to make the sale. Note also, the continued and striking support among younger voters. The GOP is not looking good to these voters, a long term problem for Republicans that we saw in the election results. Finally, support by a few Senate Rs and passage may also change the numbers (or not) going forward. I don't think we should assume these numbers are written in stone.
Pew makes clear that of those that have heard the most, opposition is greatest. however, we don't know if that's concern about the House version, the Senate version, the non-stop opposition and complaints of the GOP, etc. That won't stop folks from focusing on this, but the 'why' behind the numers is not so clear. The wide political and class divisions need to be factored in as well (it's always possible that more affluent voters who opposed this are better informed, for example.)
This is also very interesting:
The public is divided over whether President Obama and Republican leaders in Congress are working together in the effort to craft an economic stimulus plan. Among those who say the White House and GOP are not working together, most blame Republican leaders rather than Obama...
Democrats who say the two sides are not working well together overwhelmingly blame Republican leaders; fully 86% say they are at fault. Republicans are more divided, with 40% blaming Obama and 26% blaming their party’s congressional leaders; 15% of Republicans say both sides are to blame. Most independents who say Obama and Republican leaders are not working well together blame GOP leaders (62%), compared with 14% who blame Obama and 12% who blame both sides
There's a lot to digest here, but as long as Republicans are seen as the party at fault, they will not have a great deal of traction in being obstructionist.
And in the end, these numbers may be most interesting of all:
Even Republicans don't like how Republicans are doing. No surprise, that. They have not been effective in denting Obama's popularity, or stopping the bill from passing. And, hey, maybe no one really likes watching Lindsay Graham have a television tantrum, not even Republicans.