The GOP’s Big Beautiful Bill Act Is Almost Law, but Few Americans Have Heard a Lot About What It Does

Public sentiment about the Republican trifecta’s Big Beautiful Bill Act remains unpopular, but as it plods closer to the finish line, its opponents are no doubt lamenting just how much it’s flown under the radar.

In advance of the Senate’s successful passage of the bill Tuesday, our June 27-29 survey showed 38% of voters say they’ve seen, read or heard “a lot” about the bill. On one hand, that marks a high point in our ongoing tracking. But on the other, it’s a relatively low number for such an important piece of legislation. 

For example, far more voters (52%) said they’d heard “a lot” about U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which preceded a boost in the president’s approval rating.

And if few voters have heard a lot about the bill, even fewer have heard a lot about many of its individual components, despite weeks of news coverage since the bill first came together in the House in mid-May.

For example, just about a quarter of voters said they’d heard “a lot” about a provision that would eliminate taxes on tipped income, and 1 in 5 have heard the same about ending taxes on overtime pay, which are among the bill’s most popular and best known provisions and garnered more casual awareness after being featured throughout Trump’s campaign.

On the other side of the coin, even fewer said they have heard a great deal of information about provisions that would raise costs for some Medicaid beneficiaries (17%) or taxes on the endowments of colleges and universities (16%), which are among the least popular pieces of the legislation.

The bottom line

The public’s meager awareness of the legislative components has allowed lawmakers some space to craft the measure without as much public pressure as might be expected back home, though this week’s events — namely Republican Sen. Thom Tillis’ announcement that he won’t seek re-election amid his pushback to Medicaid cuts — shows that they know it’s coming once the legislation starts going into effect.

In advance of the Senate’s changes to the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” this week, 50% of voters opposed and 36% supported the legislation, which we described as a proposal to make changes to the tax system, increase immigration and defense spending and reduce spending for Medicaid and renewable energy development. 

Those findings are in line with our previous six weeks of polling, before and after the House first passed the measure in May.

As has been the case in our previous surveys, Democratic voters are more likely to oppose the legislation than Republicans are to support it (74% to 65%), with Democrats far more likely to “strongly” resist the measure than Republicans are to “strongly” back it (59% to 35%).

As we look toward the midterm elections next year, public opinion is already inclined to lean Democrats’ way on the overall package — not to mention the declining trust in the GOP to handle a range of related issues we’ve documented in our ongoing tracking of public opinion on Trump’s Washington.

While the GOP does have a chance to elevate the more popular pieces of the package that voters just haven’t heard much about, the same is true for Democrats, who have traditional political gravity against the party in power working to their advantage.