House’s ‘Build Back Better’ Legislation Backed by Roughly Half of Voters

President Joe Biden’s House-passed “Build Back Better” legislation has support from roughly half of the electorate, according to a new Morning Consult/Politico poll, but a plurality of voters believe the roughly $2 trillion plan will make inflation in the United States worse. 

The latest numbers

• Roughly half of voters (49 percent) support the roughly $2 trillion climate and social spending package, while 38 percent oppose it. 
• The Build Back Better package has more support from Democrats (80 percent) than it has opposition from Republicans (71 percent).
• Independent voters are split almost evenly, with 41 percent in favor and 38 percent opposed to the legislation.

The context

As the measure heads to the Senate, where it is expected to be altered, the president and his party will have to grapple with voters’ concerns about its price tag. While some independent analysts have said the measure will not add to inflationary pressures, many voters disagree.

What else you should know

• A plurality of voters (43 percent) say they think the package will make inflation “worse,” compared with 26 percent who think it will make inflation better and 15 percent who say they think it will have no impact.
• The bulk of independent voters (48 percent) and the majority of Republicans (74 percent) think the spending will make inflation worse, while 45 percent of Democrats think it will make it better versus only 14 percent who say worse.
• Roughly 3 in 10 voters (31 percent) said they’d seen, read or heard “a lot” about the House’s passage of Biden’s top domestic agenda item, roughly in line with the share who heard “a lot” the same “a lot” about the chamber’s’s sending the president his bipartisan infrastructure legislation earlier this month. 

The survey was conducted Nov. 20-21, 2021, among 1,999 registered voters, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.