Trumpcare offers Democrats an opportunity and a challenge for 2018, according to a new poll of 15 Republican-held swing House districts. The opportunity is that voters don’t like the Republican healthcare bill—just 38 percent have a favorable opinion of it—and don’t want to vote for Republicans who supported it—52 percent of those who know how their representative voted on Trumpcare want to elect a Democrat in 2018. The challenge is that nearly half of people didn’t know how their representatives voted on the bill. Democrats have a powerful tool, but they need to get the word out starting now.
The poll, by Garin-Hart-Yang Research for Priorities USA and Patriot Majority, finds 53 percent of voters in these Republican-held districts have an unfavorable opinion of Trumpcare, while just 38 percent have a favorable opinion, and the intensity is on the side of people who don’t like it. Information increases the gap:
Forty-five percent of voters across the 15 districts say they have heard a lot about the GOP bill, and there is a powerful relationship between knowing a lot about the AHCA and having an intensely negative opinion of it. Among the 45% who say they know a lot, only 34% are favorable to the bill (11% very favorable, 23% somewhat favorable), while 65% are unfavorable to the bill—including a majority of 53% who are very unfavorable. Independent voters who have heard a lot about the AHCA are unfavorable to it by a whopping margin of 70% to 27%. Independents who have heard less about the bill so far are unfavorable to it by 49% to 32%.
But people need to know how their representatives voted, and so far, only 56 percent of those polled knew that their Republican representatives had voted yes. That made a big difference in how they planned to vote:
Voters who know that their representative voted “yes” on the bill say by 52% to 40% that they would prefer to elect a Democrat next year rather than reelect their Republican incumbent. Those who are not yet aware of the health care vote currently prefer to reelect the incumbent, by 56% to 27%.
Everyone needs to know. Republicans benefit if people don’t know what their bill would do to health care in the U.S. and they benefit if people don't know how they voted on it. The way Democrats win in 2018—and, by winning, protect whatever is left of Obamacare, investigate Donald Trump, and so much more—is to make sure that voters know where their Republican representatives stand, and then mount strong Democratic campaigns to defeat those Republicans.
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