2 in 3 support Biden infrastructure plan amid deep partisan divides

Roughly 2 in 3 Americans said they support President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan, though approval of the plan fell heavily along party lines, a recent report from the Monmouth University Polling Institute found.

The poll released April 26 found that 68% of Americans were in favor of the president’s proposal, which calls for major overhauls to the nation’s aging infrastructure. The package, known as the American Jobs Plan, is the second leg of the president’s effort to jump-start the nation’s economy, following a $1.9 trillion relief bill that Biden signed in March.

Some economists have characterized the latest plan as the largest federal economic intervention since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal nearly a century ago.

Funds would go toward transportation – trains, roadways, bridges and tunnels like the Gateway Hudson River crossing – water infrastructure, offshore wind and other clean energy goals.

The poll showed that 94% of Democrats and 69% of independent voters support the plan, compared to just 32% of Republicans.

Overall, 29% of respondents said they opposed the plan, according to the poll which conducted phone interviews with 800 American adults between April 8 and 12. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

A future plan from Biden that focuses on health care, child care, and support for paid leave and tuition aid, garnered support from 64% of those interviewed and opposition from 34% of respondents.

The poll found that 64% support raising taxes on corporations and 65% supported taxes on those making above $400,000 a year in order to pay for these plans.

“The Biden administration’s presumption that spending programs are popular is borne out by these poll numbers. The key to maintaining this level of support is whether Americans can point to direct benefits in their own lives once those plans are put into action,” said Patrick Murray, who heads the institute.

Other polls have largely shown bipartisan splits between how Democrats and Republicans feel about the job Biden has been doing.

A Stockton University poll from March found that 93% of Democrats supported Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill, compared to just 25% of Republicans. That poll found that 99% of Democrats were confident of Biden’s ability to get the pandemic under control, compared to 47% of Republicans.

Ninety-four percent of Democrats said they were confident the current president could improve the nation’s post-COVID economy, compared to 17% of Republicans.

“Forget about being on the same page. They’re not even in the same book,” John Froonjian, director of Stockton’s William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy, which ran the March poll, said of the two parties.