Washington (CNN) Republican attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act are in a holding pattern at the moment as the Trump White House and House GOP leaders search for votes to pass some sort of proposal.

New polling from the Washington Post and ABC News suggests that no matter what they come up with, they've already likely lost the messaging fight over health care.

Just more than one in three respondents (37%) said they prefer that Republicans repeal and replace the ACA. By contrast, 61% would rather see Congress keep the law and work to improve it.

Democrats, as you might expect, are nearly unanimous (88%) in favor of keeping and improving Obamacare. Far more surprising to me is that one in five self-identified Republicans (21%) prefer keeping and improving the law as opposed to repealing and replacing it. Independents clearly favor the keep/improve option; two thirds say they prefer that to repealing and replacing it.

What's clear from those numbers is that Republicans are in a deep hole in selling their Obamacare alternative to the public before there's even been a single actual vote on the proposal.

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