Massive Polling Report

We have a lot of little polling nuggets from recent polls. We also have some analysis of the President’s poll standing versus the economy’s performance (hint: the economy’s good so the President should be doing much much better in the polls, but he is not).   And we also have the Cook Political Report’s change in ratings in dozens of House seats that definitely puts the chamber in play.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that 71% of Americans want the Trump administration to make the Affordable Care Act work, which is pretty much the opposite of what it’s been doing over the last week.

While the poll was conducted before the White House announced that Trump would end crucial subsidies for insurers under Obamacare, 60 percent of respondents said they want to keep the payments in tact.

Democrats (93 percent) and Independents (74 percent) were far more supportive of the idea than Republicans. About half of the Republicans surveyed — 48 percent — said they’d like to see the Trump administration make the current health care law work. Four in 10 Republicans said Trump should make the law fail, according to the poll.

About 66 percent said they thought it was more important to craft legislation to stabilize the Affordable Care Act than it was to continue trying to repeal and replace the law. Exactly 30 percent of those surveyed thought repeal and replacement efforts were more important.

34% of Americans say they approve of President Trump’s executive order to undermine the stability of the Obamacare market, according to a survey by the Public Policy Polling. 48% disapprove and the rest are not sure.

A Hart Research poll of 2016 voters last month showed that 61 percent of respondents already felt that Trump was trying to make Obamacare fail, 78 percent of voters wanted Trump and Republicans to take the necessary steps to stabilize markets, and that 71 percent of voters would consider Trump at least partially responsible and 83 percent of voters would consider Congressional Republicans at least partially responsible if premiums rise next year and there are fewer insurers on the individual market.

That same poll found that Democrats might even be able to run on such an issue. Democrats were beating Republicans on the generic Congressional ballot 43 to 36, but that margin increased to 56 to 44 when voters were presented the option of Democrats who would fix Obamacare and Republicans who would dismantle it.

Another Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that while 88% of all respondents (Democrats, Republicans and Independents) acknowledge the damage in Puerto Rico is “very severe,” 56% of Republicans say most people in Puerto Rico are getting the help they need; 74% of Republicans said the government was doing enough to restore electricity and access to food and water; and 75% of Republicans say the government’s response in Puerto Rico has been “about right,” as opposed to too slow or too fast.

FiveThirtyEight: “As you can see in the chart below, Trump’s overall net approval rating is far below where we would expect it to be if the usual relationship between economic and overall approval ratings held for him. Instead of a net job approval rating of -18 percentage points, Trump’s would be projected to be about +12 percentage points.”

The Cook Political Report changed ratings on 12 individual House races across the country and 11 of the 12 shifted to the benefit of Democrats. David Wasserman, the author of the report, told CNBC: “Democrats are on the cusp of where they need to be to take the House back… Everything we’re seeing now is a mirror image of 2009.”

“A CBS News Tracker survey published Sunday showed that majorities want more cooperation between Congress and Trump, especially the president’s strongest backers and most Republicans. The most fascinating nugget from the poll: 39% of Republicans feel that their party’s congressional representatives ‘don’t like’ the president and are actively trying to undermine him, while another 37% think congressional Republicans don’t like Trump ‘but pretend to’ in order to try passing their own agenda.”