The Pennsylvania result – What happens when you try to take away publicly funded healthcare
The moves against ObamaCare seems to have been a big vote driver
The US pollster Public Policy Polling carried out an on the day survey during Tuesday’s special Congressional election in Pennsylvania District 18.
What is interesting from the data is that health care ranked as a top issue for 52% of voters and only 19% said it was not that important or not important at all. The data shows that the Democrat, Conor Lamb, won big especially among voters for whom health care was a top priority.
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Among voters who said health care was the most important issue for them, Lamb beat his Republican opponent, Rick Saccone by 64-36 and among the broader group of voters who said it was either the most important or a very important issue Lamb beat Saccone 62-38.
On health care, voters said Lamb better reflected their views by 7 points (45% to 38%) over Saccone. With independents, that gap widened to 16 points with 50% saying Lamb’s health care views were more in line with theirs to only 34% for Saccone.
Voters were less likely to support Saccone because of the Republican health care agenda. Saccone’s support of the Republican health care agenda made 41% of voters less likely to vote for him and only 28% more likely to support him. Those sampled in this heavily Republican district disapproved of the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act
by 14 points (53% to 39%).
A total 48% believed Republicans are “now trying to undermine and sabotage it since they failed to repeal it”. Among independent voters, the disparity is even wider with only 33% supporting the GOP’s health care repeal efforts to 63% opposing them.
In what has been a deeply Republican district, 44% of voters support the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) while 42% oppose it. Only 38% of voters think the best path forward on health care is to repeal the Act, to 59% who think it should be kept in place with fixes made to it as necessary.
This was a district, of course, that Trump won by 20 points at WH2016.