NEW POLL: Alabama Voters Oppose Republican Tax Plan

Poll comes as Republicans prepare to vote on a plan before seating Alabama Senator-elect Doug Jones

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, December 15, 2017

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As Republicans prepare to vote on their tax plan without honoring the will of Alabama voters, new polling from Not One Penny and Public Policy Polling shows Alabama voter’s deep dislike of the Republican plan to give tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations. Just 38 percent of Alabama voters express support for the tax plan being considered by Congress while 44 percent oppose the plan. Opposition rises to 50 percent amongst voters who have heard, seen, or read “a lot” about the plan.

Alabama voters also see the wealthy and large corporations as the biggest beneficiaries of the plan — 53 percent think they will benefit more from the tax plan, while just 35 percent think that the middle class and small businesses will benefit.

Conducted before Senator-elect Doug Jones’ December 12th special election victory, this survey has been weighted by gender, race, party, and age breakdowns from the exit poll to reflect the demographics of the electorate.

“Even red states like Alabama are sick and tired of Trump’s giveaways to corporate insiders and private jet owners,” said Nicole Gill, Executive Director of Tax March. “Senator McConnell has an obligation to respect the will of Alabama voters and wait until Senator-elect Jones is seated before holding a vote on his plan to re-write the tax code in favor of the wealthy and well-connected. Continuing to jam this bill through Congress disrespects the voices of an Alabama electorate that is opposed to this tax plan.”

President Donald Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell have both expressed support for waiting to hold votes on major legislation until after special election winners have been seated. Most notably, each demanded that Democrats delay voting on the Affordable Care Act until after the seating of former Senator Scott Brown.

Today’s poll results are consistent with national polling showing that nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose the Republican tax plan and that large majorities think the plan will help large corporations (76 percent) and wealthy Americans (69 percent). Only 24 percent of Americans think the plan will help their family.

More than 700 protests of the Republican tax plan have been held over the past two months all over the country, as well as the more than 1.2 million calls to Members of Congress from their constituents, calling on Republicans to stop their efforts to rig the system against the middle class.

Other key findings:

Alabamians are less likely to support the tax plan when learning of particular provisions of the legislation, including:

Triggering a $25 billion cut to Medicare (54 percent less likely to support)
Raising taxes on 11 million households making under $200,000 by 2019 and rising to 83 million households by 2027 (56 percent less likely to support)
Repealing the requirement that individuals have health insurance, resulting in a 10 percent increase in premiums next year and reducing the number of insured individuals by 13 million over 10 years (47 percent less likely to support)
Increasing the national debt by $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years (54 percent less likely to support).

The memo regarding poll results can be found here. Full results can be found here.

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