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I’d love to tell you that it is, as Democrats deserve a thorough beating for following through on it. But having seen four different polls on the issue this week, it’s hard to find evidence of political catastrophe afoot.

These two were published a few days ago.

In the Emerson poll, the combination of “not enough” and “just right” is a solid majority of every age group except senior citizens, where it’s a narrow minority (52/48).

The essential caveat with any “issue poll” is that you can’t predict with any certainty how the issue’s popularity or unpopularity might influence votes since supporters and opponents may feel different levels of passion about it. A loyal liberal who was going to vote anyway this fall might tell a pollster that they favor the plan, but who cares? Their vote was already banked. Not so with a working-class voter who was planning to skip the midterms but now feels moved to vote Republican due to his outrage at Biden’s giveaway to the professional class. That matters. And issue polling doesn’t tell us anything about that.

But, with that caveat in mind, two new polls today also don’t point to disaster for Democrats. Morning Consult sees narrow public support for the loan forgiveness plan despite the fact that independents lean slightly against it:

The difference-maker is the quarter of Republicans who back the plan and who I’m going to guess are mostly college graduates with debt. Fiscal conservatives like free money too!

Quinnipiac also has new data. Their polling has been toxic for Democrats since spring, with Biden notching job approval ratings in Q-polls this summer of 35 percent before sliding to an almost radioactively horrible 33 percent last month. Suddenly, in today’s new survey, he’s back up to 40 percent, a number within spitting distance of respectability. And his loan forgiveness plan is reasonably popular with voters:

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Americans 53 – 43 percent approve of President Biden’s plan to cancel some federal student loan debt for Americans earning less than $125,000 a year, with eligible borrowers forgiven $10,000 in federal student loan debt and those who received Pell Grants forgiven up to $20,000.

Democrats (88 – 9 percent) and independents (53 – 43 percent) approve of Biden’s plan, while Republicans (81 – 14 percent) disapprove of his plan…

When asked about the amount of student loan debt being canceled, 30 percent of Americans say President Biden’s plan should have cancelled more federal student loan debt, 29 percent say it should have cancelled less federal student loan debt, and 25 percent say it’s about the right amount.

The last paragraph there can’t be stressed enough when trying to interpret the data on this subject. Not everyone who disapproves of the new program disapproves because it’s an indefensible giveaway to a class of people who don’t deserve it and don’t urgently need it. Some are AOC-style progressives who disapprove because Biden didn’t go whole hog and forgive all student loan debt, not just the first 10 grand. Those critics are voting Democratic anyway this fall despite their unhappiness, rest assured.

Add up all of the above and it doesn’t point to a grand backlash brewing on Election Day against the policy.

There’s another key point about these two polls. All year we’ve written about how shockingly unpopular Biden is with Hispanic voters, panicking Democrats who have no obvious way to replace those votes if they break towards the GOP. Hispanics have always been lukewarm about Biden, but taking a mostly working-class group and piling on historic inflation will reliably turn “lukewarm” into ice cold. Per today’s Morning Consult data, though, he’s no longer ice cold with Hispanics: He’s now at 49/47 overall approval among the group and at 59/33 support on the question of the loan forgiveness plan. It’s a similar story at Quinnipiac, where Hispanics now rate Biden 47/46 on job approval and at 63/30(!) on the loan forgiveness program.

And that’s probably not a coincidence:

Among Latino undergraduate students who began their postsecondary education in 2012, 51% borrowed funds to pay their undergraduate or graduate education, according to Excelencia in Education, one of the nation’s leading educational think tanks focused on Latino college completion.

The initial $10,000 of federal student loan forgiveness will allow about half of all Latino borrowers to have their entire debt forgiven, according to Excelencia…

Almost 7 in 10 (67%) Latino student borrowers have educational debt, according to the Education Data Initiative. Thirty-three percent of Latino borrowers said they put off marriage and 37% delayed having children because of their student debt.

There’s no way to know if Biden’s gambit has flipped any Hispanic voters back to blue who were thinking of voting red this fall. But the program was transparently designed to be an election-season bribe. Would it be so shocking to find that the bribe was accepted by some voters?

Predictably, white college grads have also suddenly warmed up to the president now that he’s writing many of them a big check:

By the way, Quinnipiac and Morning Consult also have Democrats up on the generic ballot by four and five points, respectively. Another new poll from YouGov has them up eight, their best number in any individual poll since last October. Maybe we should stop wondering if loan forgiveness is going to blow Dems up and start wondering if the bribe is actually going to win them the Senate.

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