Democrats, independents oppose GOP tax plan: poll

A majority of independent and Democratic voters oppose the GOP tax overhaul, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.

Fifty-six percent of American adults who identified themselves as politically independent said they disapproved of the GOP’s tax plan, while 87 percent of Democrats said the same. Just 16 percent of Republicans polled disapproved of the plan.

When it comes to support for the plan, the divide is even more pronounced. Just 25 percent of independents said they approved of the plan, and only 7 percent of Democrats said the same. Meanwhile, 70 percent of Republicans approve of the plan, which passed the Senate in a 2 a.m. vote late Friday night.

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Public uncertainty about the GOP tax plan is largely concentrated among independents and Republicans, a sign that support for the plan could still grow if the GOP can convince holdouts in those two groups. Nineteen percent of independents and 14 percent of Republicans told Gallup they didn’t yet have an opinion of the tax plan.

Gallup last polled Americans’ support for a tax plan overhaul during the Reagan administration in 1986. At that time, 39 percent of American adults favored the Republican plan spearheaded by Reagan, compared to just 29 percent of adults overall who support the current GOP plan.

The House’s version of the tax plan passed earlier this month, and the two chambers of Congress will now go into conference negotiations with the hopes of sending a bill to President Trump’s desk before the end of the year.

Gallup’s poll contacted 1,020 American adults  Dec. 1 and Dec. 2 via landline and cellphone calls. The margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 4 percentage points.