Voters in Washington State are big fans of the Democratic Party’s chief 2021 legislative accomplishment thus far, with three in five expressing support for the American Rescue Plan championed by the Biden-Harris administration, a survey recently conducted for the Northwest Progressive Institute has found.
60% of nine hundred and ninety two likely 2022 Washington State voters surveyed late last month by Public Policy Polling said they supported the American Rescue Plan, while 32% were opposed and 8% were not sure.
The American Rescue Plan is very popular with Washingtonians
Approved in Congress with only Democratic votes and signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11th, 2021, the American Rescue Plan authorizes $1.9 trillion of investments to help the nation recover from the coronavirus pandemic and “Build Back Better”, in the words of Biden’s 2020 campaign slogan.
The Plan:
- provided for $1,400 economic impact payments to most individuals;
- expanded unemployment benefits;
- extended nutrition assistance;
- significantly boosted the Child Tax Credit;
- provided badly needed resources for public health research and pandemic response, including to the CDC, FDA, and Indian Health Services;
- authorized billions of dollars in funding for Amtrak, airlines, public transit agencies, K‑12 schools, colleges, and universities;
- and, among other provisions, created a Restaurant Revitalization Fund and added more funding to the Paycheck Protection Program.
A high level fact sheet describing the American Rescue Plan, created and published by the White House, is available from Wikisource.
The text of the Act is available from Congress.gov.
National surveys from Quinnipiac, Monmouth, and others have consistently found broad support for the American Rescue Plan — with even some Republican voters supportive — so our finding is not a surprise. But it’s nice to have a state level data point to go along with all of the national data we already have.
Since the Plan has already been in the news a lot and is the most consequential legislation of this Congress, we opted not to describe its provisions in our question, to ensure our question would be as simply and neutrally worded as possible. Here’s the text of the question and the responses that we received:
QUESTION: Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose, or strongly oppose the American Rescue Plan, also known as the most recent COVID-19 relief bill?
ANSWERS:
- Support: 60%
- Strongly support: 45%
- Somewhat support: 15%
- Oppose: 32%
- Somewhat oppose: 11%
- Strongly oppose: 21%
- Not sure: 8%
Notably, more Washingtonians strongly support the Plan than oppose it altogether.
Democratic voters almost unanimously favor the Plan, with 92% of those surveyed expressing support (81% strongly, 11% somewhat). Republican voters are mostly opposed (72%), although 18% did say they support the plan, with 10% not sure. A majority of independents are also supportive: 56% support the plan, 30% oppose it. 13% of independents said they were not sure.
National polls have previously found higher percentages of Republican voters supportive of the American Rescue Plan. However, Washington has fewer voters who identify as Republicans than many other states in the country.
Our survey of 992 likely 2022 Washington State voters was in the field from Tuesday, May 25th through Wednesday, May 26th, 2021.
It utilizes a blended methodology, with automated phone calls to landlines (50%) and text message answers from cell phone only respondents (50%).
The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling for the Northwest Progressive Institute, and has a margin of error of +/- 3.1% at the 95% confidence interval.
President Joe Biden was favorably rated by 54% of poll respondents, a finding we released last month. An even higher number of respondents — 56% — expressed support for abolishing the filibuster in the United States Senate.
One Comment
This is an important area of concern. Governing well needs to be followed with robust candidate recruitment. The Democratic Party must prioritize efforts “to contest every seat”, certainly every congressional district, and also each legislative district. We know that some legislative districts have a lot of Republican voters, but census-wise, no Washington legislative district has less than 30,000 Democratic votes. The Party must present them with a credible candidate — that is a basic function of a party organization, after all.