Passage of the measure will lift President Trump’s spirits but not, in all likelihood, his poll numbers. Voters have figured out the bill is not a middle-class tax reform but rather a present for those who need it the least. CNN’s latest poll reports: “Opposition to the bill has grown 10 points since early November, and 55% now oppose it. Just 33% say they favor the GOP’s proposals to reform the nation’s tax code.” In addition: “Two-thirds see the bill as doing more to benefit the wealthy than the middle class (66%, vs. 27% who say it’ll do more to benefit the middle class) and almost four in 10 (37%) say that if the bill becomes law, their own family will be worse off. That’s grown five points since early November. Just 21% say they’ll be better off if the bill becomes law.”

The Monmouth poll likewise finds:

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Nearly half the American public (47%) disapprove of the tax reform bills passed by the Senate and House and just 26% approve. Another 8% withhold judgement until seeing the final plan and 19% have no opinion. … The current proposal is significantly less popular than the landmark 1986 tax reform law. A Gallup poll taken in September 1986 when that bill was in the final stages of passage found that 39% of the public approved of the bill compared to 33% who disapproved. “One of the reasons the current plan may be less popular than the Reagan-era package is that the 1986 bill was seen as a good faith bipartisan effort rather than a purely partisan proposal,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

What’s most telling is that approval among Republicans isn’t nearly as high as everyone else’s disapproval:

Republicans favor the proposed tax reform plan by a 55% approve to 16% disapprove margin. Democrats (7% approve to 72% disapprove) and independents (20% approve to 53% disapprove) are decidedly negative about the proposed changes. The package doesn’t play well in areas of the country that the GOP needs to win in 2018. Opinion of the tax reform plan is divided in “red” counties that Trump won by at least ten percentage points in 2016 – 34% approve and 37% disapprove. In “swing” counties where the margin of victory for either candidate was less than ten points, 30% approve of the plan compared with 38% who disapprove. In “blue” counties that Hillary Clinton won by ten points or more, only 15% approve while 60% disapprove.

Seventy-five percent of voters think their taxes will go up or stay the same, while “a majority (55%) of those earning less than $50,000 a year believe their own federal taxes will go up if this plan is passed. They are joined by 45% of those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 and 49% of those earning over $100,000 who say their taxes will go up.”

Whether those predictions come true or not, voters won’t be under the new tax rules until after the midterms, when in 2019 they file for the calendar year 2018. In the meantime, the stench of a partisan tax bill crafted mostly for the benefit of GOP donors remains. And that is part of a much bigger problem for Republicans.

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The Monmouth poll also finds: “Currently, a majority of Americans (53%) say that middle class families have not benefited at all from Pres. Trump’s policies. Just 11% say the middle class has benefited a lot and 25% say it has benefited a little. The public was much more optimistic right before Trump took the oath of office in January. Back then, two-thirds expected that the middle class would benefit from the policies of a Trump administration – 26% a lot and 40% a little – while only 29% felt that the middle class would not benefit at all.” Indeed, whether or not you approve of Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, deregulation or a de facto Muslim travel ban, the typical middle-class American derives little to no immediate benefit from any of that. When, next year, Democrats ask Americans whether their health care is cheaper, the world is safer and their government is less corrupt, the response (after guffaws) will in all likelihood be “no” for a significant majority of voters.

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As much as the Russia investigation (with the potential for finding grounds for obstruction of justice on the part of President Trump and/or members of his administration and ample evidence of Russian contacts, previously denied, between the Trump camp and the Russians) may pose a danger to Trump, the more immediate danger for Republicans is their inability to put distance between themselves and an unpopular president who is seen as betraying his base. A Democratic Party focused on actual relief for the middle class (redo the 2017 tax bill to cut out goodies for Trump and his friends), anti-corruption measures, a health-care fix (in part to mend damage done by repeal of the individual mandate), decent treatment for immigrants and throwing sexual predators out of government may find a receptive audience not only among members of Democrats’ traditional base but also among women, suburbanites and college-educated voters more generally who are sick of Trump’s antics and Republicans’ excuses. Eleven months is an eternity in politics, but perhaps not enough time for the GOP to recover from its self-inflicted wounds.