Poll: More Dems now support Senate health bill

The dissatisfaction with the legislation in some parts of the left doesn't appear to have spread

Published December 21, 2009 8:34PM (EST)

A new CNN poll is getting some attention, because it shows a six percentage point bump in approval of the Senate's healthcare reform legislation. That result's probably getting overplayed a bit, though.

For one thing, the percentage of respondents who told CNN they favor the bill is still just 42 percent, compared to 56 percent who oppose it. For another, the poll's margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points, so the bump could really be non-existent -- we'll need to see more polling to know if the numbers really are moving.

There were some notable results in the poll, though. Support for the bill is up 10 percent among Democrats, despite the opposition to the deals the Senate struck that's come from the left recently. And President Obama's approval rating, too, was up among self-identified liberals. That number's now at 81 percent.

Update: Wanted to add a point I meant to include earlier -- it's also fair to expect that Obama's numbers generally will go up after the bill's done and signed. Given the trend among Democrats now, that's likely to be especially true for Democrats' ratings of him. There's been a fair amount of frustration at the administration on the left because of a perception that Obama really hasn't gotten much done, and a major accomplishment like the bill will probably alleviate that.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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