The following article, “NEW POLL: Working Class Voters on the GOP’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’: Working class voters oppose the GOP bill, think it overwhelmingly hurts them while helping the rich, and find messages about health care impacts and tax unfairness most convincing,” is cross-posted from The Working-Class Project (click on link to see full article with graphs):

We’re back this week with another update from the largest research effort to understand why working class voters are trending away from Democrats.

This week, we want to share some new polling data on how working class voters are viewing the GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

It’s one of our surveys from a pool of 1,000 registered self-identified working class voters that we’ve been polling for months. This snapshot was taken in mid-June across 21 of the “swingiest” states (see map below). The group of voters surveyed supported President Trump by 7 points in the 2024 election.

TOPLINES

• A majority of working class voters in our battleground oppose the GOP bill after hearing arguments both for and against it.
• A generic 2026 ballot test goes from tied to +8 Democrat after hearing messaging against the GOP bill – including +2 Democrat in reliably redstates.
• Messaging against the GOP bill increases support for Democrats in the 2026 ballot test among independents by a net 12 points from +4 Dem (36-32%) to +16 Dem (42-26%).

WORKING CLASS VOTERS SEE MEDICAID AS IMPORTANT TO THEIR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES

Even without hearing messaging on the GOP bill and its impact on Medicaid, working class voters overwhelmingly see Medicaid as important to their families and communities – including in red states and among Republican working class voters.

This reinforces discussions in our focus groups, where voters consistently identify Medicaid by its local name (BadgerCare in Wisconsin, AHCCCS in Arizona, Healthy Louisiana, etc.) and defend it as a critical resource for working class people – very different from the way they talk about other programs that they view as “handouts” or welfare that reward people who refuse to work hard and play by the rules.

WORKING CLASS VOTERS SAY THEY WILL BE HURT MOST BY THE GOP BILL

As Republicans in Congress rush to pass their budget bill, working class voters believe it will hurt them and the poor, while benefiting the wealthy.

• 72% of working class independents, and 4 in 10 Republicans, name the working class as the group most hurt by the GOP bill.

WHAT MESSAGES AGAINST THE GOP BILL ARE MOST EFFECTIVE?

WHAT GROUPS OF WORKING CLASS VOTERS MOVE THE MOST?

Messaging about the GOP bill moves all working class voter demographics against the Republicans and toward the Democrats in a generic ballot test, with the largest shifts among Latino and Black voters and independents.

Among those who shifted, we see the same group of messages emerging, but the single most effective message focuses on how the GOP bill gives tax cuts to the wealthy while unfairly burdening working class people.

DEMOCRATS HAVE A HUGE OPPORTUNITY TO SOLIDIFY UNSHAPED OPINION AGAINST THE BILL

But after they hear messaging for and against the bill, those who came in with little information about it oppose it by nearly 30 points – showing Democrats have the chance to set the perception of this bill among the very working class voters who helped power President Trump’s 2024 victory.

SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Across our focus groups over the past few months, when we’ve brought up the GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” many participants initially didn’t know much about it or react strongly to it. But once they’ve been provided information about what the bill does, they have developed strong, negative reactions. Nearly all of them could tell a story about how some aspect of what this bill does to certain programs would hurt them or someone close to them. It’s been clear as we’ve listened to these voters that the GOP is taking a huge risk by pushing through this bill that dramatically cuts Medicaid and hurts people’s health care in order to give big tax cuts to rich people and billionaires.

The findings of this survey specifically should jar Republicans, in that this was a Trump-heavy voter sample. (Remember: this group supported Trump by 7 points in 2024.) These working class voters were the decisive group that swung the election his way. By ramming through this bill, Republicans are putting their own electoral coalition in jeopardy, as GOP Senator Thom Tillis noted in his passionate warning on the Senate floor this week.

The race is on to define the perception of this bill. Many remain unsure about the bill, what it does, and how it will impact them. But when they hear more about the bill, they oppose it – and think it hurts them.

Democrats have the opportunity to re-align perceptions of the two parties and who they’re fighting for, and to define the early stakes of the 2026 election cycle, by leaning into the effects of this signature Republican bill and taking their messages as far-and-wide as possible.