President Barack Obama’s big win at the Supreme Court hasn’t translated into a significant polling bump — at least according to early returns.
Four surveys conducted since Thursday’s 5-4 ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate show a slight uptick in favorability for his health care reforms. Pollsters, though, attribute that as much to Americans wanting to side with a winner than any permanent support: The numbers show an electorate slightly in favor of the law, even if they don’t know too much about it.
And the bitter divide remains. Republicans are still angry about the decision and vow to see it overturned and Democrats say they’d rather be discussing something else.
That’s all reflected in a CNN poll released Monday, which had 52 percent in favor of most or all of the health care law’s provisions. That’s up from the 45 percent who approved of what is in the law when CNN asked the same question in January.
But when CNN asked if Congress should repeal or keep “all of the provisions in the health care law,” 51 percent said to repeal the reforms and 47 percent said to keep them in place. That’s only a slight uptick from January, when 50 percent said to repeal the law and 42 percent said to keep it in place.
The Kaiser Family Foundation found, in a survey published Monday, that 47 percent approve of the court upholding the individual mandate, compared with 43 percent who disapprove. And Kaiser found 53 percent of those asked want to either expand the law or keep it as it stands.
Kaiser, which polled after the court’s ruling, found 25 percent of Americans view the health care law as “very favorable,” the highest number since the organization began polling the issue in April 2010.
The same poll, however, found GOP voters more energized than Democrats by the court’s decision. Nearly a third of Republicans said the ruling makes them more likely to vote in November, compared with 18 percent of Democrats.
A Reuters/Ipsos online poll released Sunday found that while support for the health care law rose 5 percentage points to 48 percent, opposition still stands at 52 percent.
And Gallup, in a survey conducted Thursday after the ruling for USA Today, found the nation divided evenly, with 46 percent of people both agreeing and disagreeing with the court’s decision.
The Gallup poll found 38 percent of people would either keep the law in place or expand it while 42 percent would repeal all or parts of the reforms.
While the top line of CNN’s poll appears largely favorable to Obama, the picture in swing states shows a darker scenario. The network’s poll of battleground states showed voters favor repealing the Affordable Care Act by a 60 percent clip and oppose the individual mandate 56 percent to 43 percent.
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One Response
What big win?
He had a program that he claimed wouldn’t cost anything (and would in fact save money) ruled by the Supreme Court to be nothing more than a tax hike. His attempt to radically expand medicaid was thrown out of court. The radical change in how the court interprets the Commerce Clause and “unfunded mandates” undermined his entire agenda, and since “Obamacare” was held to be largely a revenue measure it can be torn to pieces the moments the Republicans get control of the Senate since the 60-seat majority won’t apply.
And acting like he won makes people think he is less than clever