Some good news today courtesy of Public Policy Polling’s latest poll:
2018 Landscape
Democrats have a solid 49-41 lead on the generic Congressional ballot, although that’s down a shade from December when it was 51-40. Beyond their overall lead, they’re also benefiting from an enthusiasm advantage- 65% of Clinton voters say they’re ‘very excited’ to vote in the election this fall, compared to 58% of Trump voters.
Paul Ryan’s seen a bump in his approval rating after the passage of tax reform- in December it was 23-58, and now it’s 29-53. There’s been no such boost for Mitch McConnell though- he was at 13-61 then and he’s at 14-59 now.
There are two key issues working in the Democrats favor:
Tax Reform
Public opinion is more split about the tax bill now than it was before the holidays. 38% of voters say they support the plan to 41% who are opposed to it. Voters are still skeptical about how much they will personally benefit from it though. 35% think it will help their family’s finances, 29% think it won’t have much of an impact on their family’s finances, and 28% think it will hurt their family’s finances. That skepticism voters have about how much the tax bill will help them is probably rooted in the fact that 56% think it will mostly benefit the rich to 31% who think it will mostly help the middle class.
One interesting finding is that only 17% of voters realize that more than 80% of the benefits from the tax plan will go to the wealthiest 1%. It will be interesting as Democrats message around that in the midterms this year to see how much increasing awareness of that fact will impact feelings about the bill.
And:
Health Care
While the tax issue isn’t hurting Republicans quite as much as it was a couple months ago, the party’s failed effort on health care last year continues to hurt it quite a bit. Voters support the Affordable Care Act 47-35, and only 34% think the best path forward on health care is to repeal it compared to 60% who prefer to keep it in place and make fixes to it as necessary. A majority of voters nationally- 51%- think that the Trump administration is actively taking steps that will hurt people’s health care and raise costs to only 42% who don’t think it’s trying to do that.
This is in conjunction with Democrats’ internal polling:
A leading Democratic group — Priorities USA — is warning party leaders they could squander a strong political climate in 2018 if they don't start to emphasize pocketbook issues over loose and unfocused critiques of Donald Trump.
According to internal polling by the super PAC, President Trump's approval rating climbed to 44 percent in the first week of February, compared to 53 percent who disapprove. That mirrors Trump's improving position in public polls.
In November, the same survey found his approval rating at 40 percent, with 54 percent disapproving.
The group’s survey also showed the Democratic Party’s generic ballot advantage had shrunk, with 46 percent preferring Democrats to 42 percent for Republicans.
The memo says that a broad range of metrics show the political climate is still favorable for Democrats. But it also makes an unambiguous diagnosis for Trump’s recent rise: Democrats this year have stopped focusing on economic and health care issues, topics that demonstrably hurt his approval during his first year in office.
Priorities’ polling found that while people in November readily mentioned Trump’s health care and tax reform measures, by February they were instead more cognizant of his tweets.
Democrats, the memo said, must “not allow themselves to be sidetracked and distracted by Trump’s latest tweets.”
“While still on track for a successful November, the extent of Democratic gains will be blunted if Democrats do not reengage more aggressively in speaking to the economic and health care priorities of voters,” it said.
Both polling shows the majority of voters are n the Democrats’ sides when it comes to DACA and the DREAM Act and that they should still be fighting for the Dreamers. But It’s economic issues that we have to keep the focus on. We’re still flipping seats and we have a big special election in Pennsylvania coming up next month to flip disgraced Rep. Tim Murphy’s (R. PA18) seat with a pro-union, former Federal Prosecutor and and Marine Veteran Democrat. Click here to donate and get involved with Conor Lamb’s (D. PA-18) campaign.