Top GOP Pollster: Trump Budget Will Hurt 'A Great Many' Of His Voters
Whit Ayres
The impact of President Donald Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill Act" will be felt acutely in areas that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, according to one Republican pollster.
Politico reported on Monday that the administration is now embracing a "stark messaging shift" as it attempts to shepherd the massive legislative package through the U.S. Senate. While the White House has insisted that the hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid (which provides health insurance to low-income and disabled Americans) would only be for "waste, fraud and abuse," administration officials are now notably pivoting to saying that the bill will be focused on "kicking illegal immigrants off of the program and implementing commonsense work requirements."
Even though the Senate has a 53-47 Republican majority, Politico observed that even talk of cutting Medicaid funding is "politically delicate." This has resulted in the administration hoping to re-define "cuts" to voters – rather than outright cutting benefits, the administration aims to impose different forms of austerity like increased eligibility redeterminations and additional work requirements that stipulate Medicaid recipients have to jump through additional hoops to get health insurance.
Some senators like Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AL) have expressed hesitancy about the additional bureaucratic roadblocks that the proposed enhanced work requirements would create, while others like Josh Hawley (R-MO) have spoken out specifically against cutting Medicaid due to the high number of constituents who depend on it.
Aside from the difficulties the administration faces in getting 51 votes out of 53 senators (or 50 votes with Vice President JD Vance as the tie-breaker), Politico reported that there could also be backlash among Republican voters depending on the scope of the cuts in the final bill. Republican pollster Whit Ayres told the outlet that he doubted voters would be able to distinguish "reforms" from "cuts," especially if they're directly affected.
“The fact remains that a great many Trump voters are on Medicaid, particularly in rural areas,” Ayres said. “If no one loses coverage, how are you going to cut $500 billion?”
Even strident conservatives among the Senate Republican Conference have pledged to oppose the bill in its current form. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI ) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have been sounding the alarm about the bill's projected cost ballooning the federal deficit by more than $2 trillion over the next 10 years.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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