Poll: Republican voters say repealing Obamacare shouldn’t be GOP’s first priority

Impact

Passing a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare may be Senate Republicans’ first priority right now, but a majority of Americans and GOP voters say it’s not No. 1 on their list, according to a new Politico-Harvard poll.

Harvard researcher Bob Blendon said the survey results mean health care won’t factor in as much for the 2018 midterm elections.

“The race, if it was held tomorrow, health care will be one of the big issues, but other issues could decide this race on both sides,” Blendon told Politico.

Terrorism ranked first on the list of priorities for all registered voters in general and Republican voters in particular, according to the poll.

Forty-seven percent of GOP voters said preventing a terrorist attack on U.S. soil was their top political issue and held the most influence when it comes to how they might vote in 2018. At 32%, stopping illegal immigration ranked a distant second on the list for Republican voters, while the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act came in third at 31%, according to the poll.

Among Democratic voters, there was a tie for the two top issues: 49% of Dems said both the Trump-Russia investigation and the president’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement were most important to them.

Blendon and other Harvard School of Public Health researchers surveyed more than 1,000 U.S. adults in mid-June.

Steve Helber/AP

Trump and GOP leaders have focused most of their attention on repealing and replacing the ACA, with plans to move onto tax reform once that dust is settled.

On Thursday, Trump told Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson that tax reform was next on his party’s agenda.

“I think after health care, taxes are gonna be so easy,” Trump said during the interview. “Health care is very hard.”