Polls show Americans largely oppose Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' but are more split on Medicaid, immigration specifics
As the "One Big Beautiful Bill" tax and policy bill championed by President Donald Trump winds its way through votes in Congress, polling taken across the past month shows Americans largely disapprove – but are more split when it comes to their views on some of its provisions.
Trump has emphasized that he believes Americans support his bill as emblematic of the agenda he campaigned on. He told reporters at a promotional event on Thursday, "Almost every major promise made in the 2024 campaign already will have become a promise kept. That's very important."
A wide-ranging Quinnipiac University poll published on Thursday that was taken in late June found that a small majority of registered voters oppose the bill, but are more split on a provision that would create new requirements to be insured through Medicaid.
Fifty-five percent of voters said that they oppose the bill, while 29% said they support it and 16% were unsure. Among Republicans, 67% said they support the act while a larger 87% of Democrats oppose it.
The bill would impose new work requirements on able-bodied Medicaid recipients who don't have dependents. Asked about how they feel about the Medicaid provisions, voters were largely split – 47% of registered voters said they support them and 46% said they oppose them, effectively a dead heat.
A separate poll of registered voters from Fox News taken in mid-June found similar results. 59% of registered voters said they oppose the bill, while 38% of them favored it. (However, around 4 in 10 voters said they don't understand the bill very much or at all.)
A smaller plurality of voters – 49% – told Fox News they think the legislation will hurt their families, while 23% said it would help and 26% said it would make no difference.
Meanwhile, a poll of American adults taken in early June by the Washington Post and Ipsos found a plurality of adults, 42%, opposing the bill, and 23% supportive of it. But at that time, 34% of American adults said they had no opinion about it, and separately, 66% said they had heard only a little or nothing at all about the bill.
However, 49% of Americans told the Washington Post and Ipsos back then that they would support extending the tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a provision of the bill -- although their support spiked to 71% when asked if they'd support or oppose those tax cuts for people who have incomes lower than $100,000, and dropped underwater when asked about individuals with incomes above $400,000 or business corporations.
The Pew Research Center, in an early June poll, also found around half – 49% – of Americans opposing the bill and 29% supporting it. Separately, 54% of Americans also felt the bill would have a "mostly negative effect on the country," while 3 in 10 felt it would have a "mostly positive effect."
But similar to the Washington Post's poll, Pew found that around half of Americans would favor creating work requirements for Medicaid, with 32% opposed.
A provision on money for border security enforcement – which Pew framed as increased funding for detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants – split American adults. 45% said they are opposed and 41% said they favor.
The nonprofit health policy research group KFF, meanwhile, found in an early June poll that a larger majority of American adults, 64%, had an unfavorable view of the bill, while 35% had a favorable view of it. Only 17% of respondents felt that the bill would help them and their families, and 44% said it would hurt, although almost 1 in 4 did not think it would make much difference.
The poll separately found a lot of support for Medicaid more generally as a program, with 79% of Americans saying they think it is the government's responsibility "to provide health insurance coverage to low-income Americans who cannot afford it."
