Rick Scott says the public has 'buyer's remorse' over Biden. The public disagrees.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) claimed on Tuesday that the American public has “buyer’s remorse” for electing President Joe Biden and Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. But polls show the exact opposite.

In a Fox Business interview, Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, tasked with regaining a GOP majority in 2022, said, “I think the American public are fed up” with Democrats and that Biden isn’t doing what he promised.

“They want a secure border. They want our schools open. They don’t want tax increases. They want us to support law enforcement,” he opined. “The Democrats are on the opposite side of all those issues. I think in the ’22 election, people are gonna have a lot of buyer’s remorse.”

But polling shows strong support for Biden and his agenda.

For months, Scott and other Republicans have demanded an immediate return to full in-person instruction in every school despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But every single Republican in Congress opposed Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which included hundreds of billions of dollars for safer school reopening.

A Navigator Research poll released March 5 found that most registered voters who pay attention to their local schools were happy with the plan for K-12 school reopening in their community by a margin of 63% to 24%. Even among Republican voters, 68% said things were going well. The poll also found that 75% of all voters prefer schools open “the right way for the safety of students” rather than simply reopen immediately.

Navigator also found voters trust Biden and Democrats more than Republicans to make decisions about “how and when to reopen schools” by a margin of 47% to 32%.

A February Morning Consult/Politico poll found 55% of registered voters did not want to reopen schools until teachers were vaccinated against the coronavirus versus 34% who preferred they reopen immediately.

Biden ran and won on a promise that he would raise taxes on Americans making more than $400,000 a year. A November New York Times/SurveyMonkey poll found 67% support for that plan, versus just 30% opposition.

A 2020 Data for Progress survey of voters in 11 states also found widespread support for adopting a 2% wealth tax on those worth more than $50 million by a margin of 62% to 26%.

The widely popular $1.9 trillion relief bill also included $350 billion for state, local, territorial, and tribal governments to help protect “the jobs of the first responders, transit workers, and other essential workers we depend on,” including public safety employees. Scott and others decried the funding as a “blue state bailout.”

Despite Scott’s suggestion that Biden has not kept his promises, Biden’s approval ratings have been strong. According to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of all polls, 55% of Americans like the job he’s done in his first two months, while 39.2% do not.

And despite Scott’s attempts to scare the public about the impact of the pandemic relief law on the national debt, the law too remains wildly popular. A Morning Consult/Politico poll earlier this month found 75% of registered voters back the law, while just 18% opposed it. Even 59% of Republicans said they backed the legislation.

Scott backed Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is expected to add between 1 trillion and 2 trillion dollars to the national debt over a decade.

Two months ago, Scott made clear that he hopes to win back a GOP majority by reusing the same attacks that failed for his party last time.

“Over the next two years, the Democrats are going to try to do a whole bunch of things that the public doesn’t want,” he told Fox News on Jan. 11. “They don’t want packing the Supreme Court. They don’t want higher taxes and more regulation. They don’t want the police defunded. I think the Democrats now have the ability to go do some things. I think it’s going to help define them and I think it’s going to help us have a big win in 2022.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.