Many Republicans similarly hope that the tax bill will reverse the movement of white-collar whites from Trump by providing them a tangible benefit. But a national CNN poll released Tuesday, confirming earlier surveys, found that twice as many college-educated whites oppose the plan as support it, and two-thirds think it would chiefly benefit the wealthy. After mostly backing House Republican candidates in the 2016 exit poll, a 55 percent majority of those voters now prefer that Democrats control Congress, according to a Quinnipiac University survey also released Tuesday.

To pass their bill, Republicans ignored the hostile polls, the unified Democratic opposition, and a succession of independent analyses showing the plan would massively increase the federal debt while generating minimal additional growth. Democrats could point to more favorable analyses of Obamacare’s potential impact when they passed the ACA, but they otherwise blew past similar political guardrails. They paid a heavy price for that choice in the next election, and Republicans have now steered themselves onto the same bumpy road.