Poll: Biden touts his 4 major infrastructure and clean energy laws. Voters doubt they’re working.
Even when they do see positive benefits, many voters aren’t giving the credit to Biden, a new POLITICO poll shows.
Voters say they don’t know very much about President Joe Biden’s major domestic spending initiatives. They don’t think they’re working. And they don’t give him credit for their benefits, anyway.
Those are among the key takeaways from a new POLITICO-Morning Consult poll about four major laws passed in the first two years of Biden’s administration — and the impact that spending has had on voters and the communities around them.
Of the four laws passed in 2021 or 2022, only Biden’s climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, garnered a majority of poll respondents who said they’d heard “a lot” or even ��some” about it. Few voters said the clean energy and infrastructure projects that Biden is championing have had a major impact in their communities or increased jobs.
Voters even give former President Donald Trump almost as much credit as Biden for advancing infrastructure spending — even though Trump’s succession of accomplishment-free “Infrastructure Weeks” became a running joke during his administration.
Trailing Trump in the polls for months, Biden has sought to elevate the extensive federal spending on infrastructure, climate change and other projects to bolster his economic record. His campaign has run ads touting these laws in seven battleground states to boost recognition and counter voters’ inflation-driven pessimism about the economy.
His messages aren’t landing — at least not beyond voters who don’t already identify as Democrats. Republicans are characteristically averse to crediting Biden, but so are self-identified independents, some of whom are the kinds of swing voters who could determine the result of the November election.
The POLITICO-Morning Consult poll (toplines, crosstabs) was conducted April 27-28 as part of POLITICO’s “Biden’s Billions” series, which is examining the impact of the president’s efforts to use the legislation to revive manufacturing, transform the economy and take on issues such as climate change. The poll surveyed 1,974 registered voters online and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Here are four takeaways from the results.
1. Voters don’t know much about the laws
Majorities of poll respondents said they haven’t seen, read or heard anything or much about three of Biden’s four major spending laws: The 2021 American Rescue Plan, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The poll found greater awareness of the Inflation Reduction Act, but still only 17 percent said they’ve heard “a lot” about it, and 35 percent said they’d heard “some” about it.
Of the four, the CHIPS and Science Act has the lowest profile. Only 9 percent of respondents said they’d heard “a lot” about it, while another 23 percent said they’d heard “some.”
Voters with higher incomes and higher levels of educational attainment tended to be slightly more likely to say they had heard about the laws.
2. There’s a clear partisan divide over the laws
The greatest divide in the survey data falls along party lines. Self-identified Democrats are more likely to say they have seen, read or heard about the laws than Republicans or independents — and are far more likely to see them as personally beneficial or helping their communities.
For example, 37 percent of Democratic voters said the Inflation Reduction Act has impacted them positively, compared with only 12 percent of Republicans and 15 percent of independents. And 44 percent of Democrats said the bipartisan infrastructure law has positively impacted their community — far more than the 15 percent of Republicans and 23 percent of independents who agreed.
3. Voters say they don’t see the benefits
The poll also suggests another problem for Biden: Broadly speaking, few voters say they’re seeing the federal government’s efforts to revitalize the nation’s infrastructure or build up a clean energy sector.
Only a quarter of voters, 25 percent, said “the clean energy and infrastructure projects approved since 2021” had increased jobs in their community. Thirty percent said they’ve had no impact, and another 28 percent didn’t know or had no opinion.
For the four specific laws tested — even when restricted to poll respondents who said they’d heard something about them — only around 25 percent said they had positively impacted them personally.
Asked about the combined impact of federal spending on infrastructure in their community since Biden became president, 26 percent said it had a “major impact,” another 26 percent said it had a “minor impact” and 30 percent said it had “no impact.” Eighteen percent of respondents had no opinion.
Biden can keep trying to champion infrastructure during the course of the campaign, but voters aren’t praising it right now.
4. Many voters credit Trump, not Biden, for doing more on infrastructure
Many voters aren’t giving Biden credit when they do see positive benefits.
When he signed the infrastructure bill into law in 2021, Biden famously succeeded where Trump had failed. But asked who has done more to promote infrastructure improvements and job creation, nearly as many voters said Trump (37 percent) as Biden (40 percent). Twelve percent said they’ve both done about the same, and another 12 percent had no opinion.
Unsurprisingly, party identification is the key driver on this question. About three-in-four Democrats, 74 percent, said Biden has done more to promote infrastructure improvements and jobs — but an almost identical number of Republicans, 70 percent, said it’s Trump who’s done more. Among independents, roughly the same number picked Biden (34 percent) and Trump (32 percent).
Biden also has a slight edge among voters in the presidential battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — leading Trump on the question of who gets more credit, 42 percent to 36 percent.
The Biden campaign’s most-aired TV ad seeks to make this point specifically: “For four years, Donald Trump tried to pass an infrastructure law — and he failed,” Biden says in the spot, which has been backed by $4.6 million in spending, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks political advertising. “I got it done. Now we’re rebuilding America.”
But on virtually every question about the spending bills — including whether Biden or Trump gets more credit — the poll numbers among respondents in electoral swing states did not meaningfully differ from the overall results. Some voters give him credit for the benefits they see — but nearly as many voters credit Trump instead.