CNN Data Guru Warns Republicans of ‘Big Beautiful Election Night’ For Dems If They Pass Trump’s Budget Bill
CNN data guru Harry Enten marveled at just how poorly President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” budget bill is polling among Americans. Enten broke down some of the latest data on air and later shared the clip online, warning Republicans that if they pass the bill, they are likely looking at a “Big Beautiful Election Night for Dems in 2026.”
“You know, I’m rarely really surprised when I look at polling data. I look at it every day. But the amount of disapproval for this bill, holy cow, my goodness gracious. And you know, you mentioned the KFF poll. We’re talking about 29 points underwater on the net favorable rating. But that matches the Quinnipiac University poll from last week, when it was 26 points underwater. Oh, my God, you need Greg Louganis to get that far underwater,” Enten began, adding:
And I mean, we’re talking about a negative 41 net favorability rating among independents in the center of the electorate. You rarely ever see pieces of legislation or proposed pieces of legislation as unpopular as this. But here you see it in two polls—26 points underwater and 29 points underwater. No good.
Anchor Sara Sidner followed up, “All right, what about the GOP? Because we have seen some pushback from some lawmakers, and we saw that, I don’t know, a nuclear reaction from Elon Musk about this bill. What are you seeing there?”
Enten replied, “Yeah, I mean, there is a large chunk of the Republican Party that is not in favor of this. So this is the GOP with an unfavorable view of this bill. And what we see here is, look at this, 23% are opposed, have an unfavorable rating of the big, beautiful bill.” He added:
Now, to put that in some perspective, Donald Trump’s unfavorable rating with the GOP is 9%. So this is more than double. All of a sudden, you’re taking a huge chunk of that MAGA base, of that Republican base that is turned against this bill. It is not just Elon Musk.
It is not just Ron Johnson, the Senate Republican from Wisconsin. It is a large chunk of the Republican base—a large, double the percentage that have an unfavorable view of Donald Trump have an unfavorable view of the big, beautiful bill. And I will note that in the KFF poll, the unfavorable view you get is 36%. You rarely ever see anything that Donald Trump backs get that high of an unfavorable view among Republicans. But here it is with the big, beautiful bill.
Sidner asked, “And there’s a very small margin there. So they’re going to have to work out these details. Give us some comparison, in 2017, we saw a bill that had Trump tax cuts in it. What does the support look like compared to that?”
Enten replied, “Yeah, you know, that wasn’t that popular back in the day. It was a minus-17 net favorable rating. But here, what do we see with the big, beautiful bill on the aggregate? Minus 28 points. So this is far more unpopular than those tax cuts were back in 2017. And remember, Republicans lost the House in 2018. So if this is the big, beautiful bill—and maybe a big, beautiful bill for Democrats, if it passes, because they’ll have a big, beautiful night come midterm night of 2026.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
