POLITICO, July 3, 2012 -- Voters haven't split clearly in one direction or another on last week's Supreme Court ruling on health care, according to a Pew Research Center poll. In fact, it doesn't look like voters even fully understand what the Court decided.
Here are Pew's results, which are consistent with -- and more detailed than -- much of the other public polling we've seen:
The public has long been divided in its opinions about the 2010 health care law. There is now a similar division of opinion over last week’s Supreme Court decision to uphold the law – 40% say they disapprove of the decision, while 36% approve and nearly a quarter (24%) offer no opinion.
Despite extensive public interest in the court’s ruling, just 55% of the public knows that the Supreme Court upheld most of the health care law’s provisions; 45% say either that the court rejected most provisions (15%) or do not know what the court did (30%). Among those aware that the court upheld most of the law, 50% approve of the decision while 42% disapprove.
So to recap: 76 percent of the public either approves or disapproves of the Court's decided, but only 55 percent actually knows what the Court decided. The political picture isn't all that much sharper among voters who say they followed the decision closely: 50 percent of those respondents approved of the decision, while 45 percent disapproved.
Overall, the bulk of polling data since last week suggests the Supreme Court decision is still in the process of sinking in, politically, with either no real advantage for either side, or the most modest of bumps for the pro-Obamacare side.
There's another good reality check in Pew's polling, which found last week's heavily covered stories on the Arizona immigration law and the "Fast and Furious" investigation haven't broken through with the general population:
This week, there also was more interest in the court’s ruling on health care than in its decision on Arizona’s immigration law (29% very closely) and the House vote holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for not sharing documents related to a gun-trafficking investigation (22% very closely).
Stories can still have political impact if they're only followed by a slice of the electorate, it's just that impact is usually more limited than it would seem to be for those watching up close.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberm...
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Tuesday, July 3rd 2012 at 4:21PM
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