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Here’s What Republicans Do and Don’t Support

Vox and Data for Progress have teamed up to conduct a new poll on a variety of issues that have been in the news recently. Many of them are related to the coronavirus bill, but not all. Here's how they fared among Republicans:


If these issues become live, the right-wing media machine will be able to knock 15-20 points off any of them if they choose to. For that reason, I'd rank the top five issues as having fairly solid Republican support; the next three having a bare majority; and the rest not really having much Republican support at all.

The takeaway here is that the top five are all COVID-19 related and even Republicans mostly support them. (The exception is allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices, which has strong support even though it's unrelated to the pandemic.)

Among the COVID-related issues that don't receive strong GOP support are a moratorium on evictions and continued unemployment bonuses. Why? Probably because most of the respondents aren't unemployed and aren't in danger of being evicted. Conversely, many of them do have kids in school and would receive $1,400 checks sent out to everyone. So they're in favor of those.

And the free vaccines and free testing? Well, everyone could use those too, couldn't they?

The basic message is Politics 101: Republican voters tend to support things that will benefit them personally, but aren't that thrilled about things that only benefit other people. The same is true of other voters as well, but not nearly as strongly.

23 thoughts on “Here’s What Republicans Do and Don’t Support

  1. Mitch Guthman

    This is the problem with relying on “data driven” political analysis. I have very little doubt but that a similar survey during the Obama administration would’ve yielded similar results (except substitute health care or whatever was topical for COVID-19) and yet Obama faced uniform opposition from Republicans who were incentivized to obstruct everything and then blame him because everything was obstructed.

    The reality is that the dominance of their party and their values is a necessary precondition for support of any policy, no matter how popular. Consequently, you can’t look at a chart like this and identify potential areas of agreement with Republicans since no matter how much support a proposal might have, preventing Democrats from achieving things and owning the libs is the overriding priority.

  2. kahner

    I'm pretty surprised how low "infrastructure" rates, particularly considering how often it's touted as a bipartisan political winner. my guess is the term to too vague to garner much support, but more specific infrastructure projects could do better.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Had we not spurned the greatest president since Lincoln -- thanks, Raffensperger -- we would have seen Infrastructure Week unleashed in the first 100 days of a second term.

      1. Mitch Guthman

        That’s right. If America’s greatest president ever had been returned to his rightful place, he’d already have broken ground on a high speed express rail service to hell. Now the poor man will have to take a Greyhound bus when he goes. Sad!

  3. D_Ohrk_E1

    Their ~$600B lowball from "moderate" Republicans (hah!) implies that they're looking to find something near the halfway point from Biden's ~$1.9T proposal.

    Democrats ought to focus on talking with Sinema and Manchin to figure out what they're comfortable with. Then, they should have Blue Dog Democrats coax these Republicans into supporting the bill, given that Democrats have the leverage to go the route of reconciliation *and* pass legislation that will end up with broad, immediate support from most Americans.

    1. Mitch Guthman

      It might be worth reminding both Sinema and Manchin that they are essentially the last two survivors of the dying breed of Blue Dogs. If it looks like making them happy is going to cost the Democrats control of Congress in 2022, we should take the loss, tell them to caucus with their own kind, and then work hard to build statewide Democratic organizations in their states (and, indeed, in every state) so that if we ever get back into power we won't have to kowtow to Joe Manchin ever again.

      1. theAlteEisbear

        Agree. In a very real sense, they're holding us back. I could see them as a strop gap, but a lot of time has passed without any serious progress toward building platforms for real democrats (democrats whose message is not overwhelmed by local politics).

          1. Mitch Guthman

            It's a tradeoff between a more basic user interface and a commenting system not ruled by an overactive, hair-trigger algorithm. If memory serves, there was a commenting system at Same Facts that was pretty good and I believe it was part of WordPress.

  4. dmhancock

    It seems that the Democrats have finally learned their lesson and will not let the most rabid Republicans be a veto point. In our highly polarized environment the policies pursued will be those that can gather a slight majority--53% is probably enough--and on most issues Democrats ran on will meet that threshold, even significant increase in the minimum wage. A reminder--$15 MW passed in Florida even as Republicans did well elsewhere on the ballot. So pleases stop trying to find ways to please partisan Republicans (I think they are already sorted in your numbers above) and just do those things that will make things better and that have substantial support. So I fundamentally disagree that there are 15-20% of Republicans who can be made into Noes.

  5. bebopman

    Actually, they seem to oppose things that their “leaders” tell them to oppose. (That’s how masks became such a big controversy while no-shirt-no-service never did.)

  6. golack

    I do like the trademark on the graphs.
    Nutritional aid has been part and parcel of aid to farmers--but they've been trying to divorce that under Trump. Child tax credit has been a right to life cause--but not for Democrats. Now, infrastructure week....

  7. jymmr

    I don't know what the Biden proposal says at this point, but a stepped approach worked here in Maine, and might work nationally. In 2016 a ballot initiative passed that raised the minimum wage from $7.50 to $9 on Jan 1, 2017, and then an additional dollar on Jan 1 of each of the next three years, reaching $12 in 2020. It also mandated an automatic increase each year based on the increase in the cost of living - the latest of which just kicked in.

    I well remember all the doom-saying of the business community back in 2016, claiming that the law would cost jobs and that the result would be an increase in unemployment, something that couldn't have been more wrong.

    Anyway, a minimum wage that was raised right now to $12 and then went up an additional dollar each year for three years, and then was automatically raised each year by the increase in the cost of living - while not as good as going to $15/hr right away - might be more palatable for those on the fence.

    However it gets done, it's not only the right thing to do, it'll be a great feather in the Dem's caps. People will remember who it was who doubled their income, whether it takes a few months or a few years.

    1. Mitch Guthman

      I thought your analysis was sound and, on the whole, very informative. It's interesting to learn how these different test cases went. I just have one small quibble with your proposed solution.

      The problem with discussing the minimum wage in terms of what will either avoid bad-faith criticism or attract Republican support is that there's no Democratic proposal could possibly do either one. That being the case, we should immediately stop framing our discussion in those terms and simply decide which will be the best policy outcome. And also that will be most likely to result in more people voting Democratic.

  8. DFPaul

    Hey! Bret Stephens just wrote one of those classic "California is awful" columns. It's pretty weak but perhaps an occasion for a patented KD takedown of this type of blather.

  9. azumbrunn

    There is an important caveat here: These things are only supported by GOP politicians if they are improved by the people paying their campaign bills.

  10. Pingback: What Republicans Want Isn’t What they Get

  11. Loxley

    So, the top 5 most popular policies among Republicans are ALL Socialist, and even go so far as to use the label "free", which conservatives use all the time to erroneously accuse democrats of being Socialist.

    Got it.....

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