“Uh, That’s It?” What The Polls Tell Us About The Stimulus
When the economic stimulus deal arrived Monday like a last-minute present rush-shipped from a distant relative, America’s collective response was “that’s it?” and “what took you so long?” Republican politicians held up talks with their Scroogeian enthusiasm for lower stimulus checks than even Trump wants, less unemployment insurance, special protections for corporations, and no aid to states and local governments. Their approach is exactly opposite of what polls show Americans want. Because broad pandemic relief is popular across the country and across party lines, even if it’s been hopelessly partisan in Washington long before Trump’s havoc-wreaking veto threat.
In five different polls we conducted just before and after the election, Americans say they want the government to take an active role and make “major” changes. A poll for the center-left organization Third Way reveals a clear majority — including about half of Republicans — want “big changes” to make “the economy work better for everyone” as opposed to ones more “targeted” to help areas most hurt by the pandemic. And our poll (not yet public) for the progressive organization Groundwork Collaborative confirms this; majorities support “major changes” to the economy as well as an active role for government to “do more to solve problems” as opposed to “leave more things for individuals and businesses to do for themselves.” Even when matched against “get politics in Washington back to normal,” as tested in our recent poll for the progressive Navigator Research, a majority across party lines agree with “the old normal isn’t working — we need big, bold changes in Washington.”
Not everyone defines “major” identically, of course. But even when we look at the specifics, policies that have been sticking points in the stimulus debate enjoy broad bipartisan support. We’ve conducted three months of tracking for Omidyar Network, a social impact venture, and the October poll showed majority support — including among Republicans — for things like state and local aid, public school aid, foreclosure and eviction relief, and food assistance.
In the December Omidyar Network poll, we used a series of forced choice questions to identify which policies voters support most, and “providing state, local, and tribal governments with the aid they need” to prevent essential workers from layoffs scores more evenly across party lines than nearly anything else we tested. (The very top scoring proposals include stimulus checks, vaccine distribution, and unemployment insurance, all of which are at least modestly addressed by the current deal.) Meanwhile protecting companies from liability lawsuits is further down the list, even with self-identified Republicans. While Republican leaders have been fighting against state aid and for a liability shield, Republican voters would actually prefer the reverse.
So not only do voters agree on the need for big changes, and on what many of those big changes should be, they want their leaders to agree with each other too. In the Third Way poll three-fourths want their leaders to compromise versus “stick to their beliefs.” Even conservative Republicans prefer compromise by more than 2-to-1.
Taken all together, the guidance has been clear — legislators should work together to agree on big changes directly helping people and their communities. But voters are seeing exactly the opposite from Washington: fighting over more limited investments and holding up aid people desperately need.
Have Republican leaders not been seeing the same urgency voters do? In the Omidyar Network survey two-thirds (including a majority of Republicans) worry “the economy will take years to recover,” second only to worrying about contracting the coronavirus. In both the Navigator Research and Groundwork Collaborative surveys, huge numbers across party lines worry about families not getting the pandemic relief they need. Imagine how hard Republican politicians need to work to not hear their constituents’ concerns.
Some might imagine Republican politicians look at the election results — making minor gains in the House and state legislative chambers but so far suffering just minor losses in the Senate — and conclude President Trump was repudiated but Republican policies were vindicated. But even Leader McConnell doesn’t seem to think this, as he cited “getting hammered” in the Georgia runoffs for Senate — not actual policy convictions — to convince his colleagues a stimulus was necessary. He must know their preferred approach is unpopular. (And now of course Trump is threatening to derail the deal altogether.)
Instead, as wait to see whether this good-enough-for-now deal even happens, I imagine a more fitting image of Republican leaders. They are sleeping well this holiday, ignoring the science of the pandemic, ignoring the finality of Biden’s electoral college win, ignoring Trump’s pardons and tweets, and ignoring the pain and worries of even those who just turned out to support them. They sit beside a warm fire willfully oblivious to voters outside in the cold. Unfortunately, Republicans have no Ghost of Christmas Future to tell them how their positions will impact those around them. But for Americans living with the pandemic in the present, the correct path continues to be clear.
