WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief bill is receiving overwhelming approval from swing voters, which include many of former President Donald Trump’s supporters, according to a new online Democratic poll.
The poll’s findings — which broadly align with other surveys of the $1.9 trillion legislative package — are further evidence of the political bind facing Republicans ahead of Friday’s vote in the U.S. House on the bill, particularly as the party seeks to retain many Trump voters who have not traditionally backed Republican candidates.
“It reveals the divisions in the Republican Party aren’t just about Trump,” said Guy Cecil, the chairman of the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA, which commissioned the poll. “There are other dividing lines between elected officials in the Republican Party and a lot of the voters they’re going to need if they want to get back the House and Senate.”
Priorities USA’s poll measured support for the COVID-19 relief package among swing voters in eight battleground states. In the survey, 69% of respondents who split their ticket in the 2020 election between Trump and down-ballot Democratic candidates supported the bill.
Meanwhile, 83% of those surveyed who split their ticket last November between Biden and GOP candidates backed the bill.
The poll also found that 61% of voters who backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Trump in 2020 approved of the legislation. And among those who voted for Trump in 2016 but switched to Biden in 2020, 84% supported the bill.
Overall, 75% of swing voters backed the legislation, according to the survey.
While large segments of the electorate currently support the bill, it remains to be seen how it will ultimately affect the 2022 midterm elections. Voters’ views will likely be shaped more by the state of the economy and whether the coronavirus pandemic has receded, not legislation passed 20 months earlier.
The sweeping bill includes a $1,400 check to many low- and middle-income Americans, financial aid to states and municipalities, and funding to speed development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, among other provisions.
Republicans argue that too much of the proposal isn’t directly targeted for pandemic relief, and instead represents a wish list of unessential liberal priorities. Few GOP lawmakers, if any, are expected to vote in favor of it in the House or Senate.
Priorities USA conducted the poll amid a larger examination of the 2020 election. The survey was conducted online from Feb. 3 to Feb. 15, among 800 swing voters in eight battleground states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — who had switched their partisan allegiance since 2016 or split their ticket between the two parties.
Apart from the coronavirus relief bill, the poll also found these voters showed a broad appetite for Biden acting without GOP support. Seventy-two percent of the swing voters said they wanted Biden to act “as quickly as possible,” even if no Republican supported the legislation.
