Give Biden a Chance? On Covid Aid, Some Trump Voters Just Might

Some Republicans share those concerns. Sean Wiley, who voted twice for Mr. Trump and describes himself as a conservative libertarian, said the government needed to provide assistance to people who have lost their jobs in the pandemic but argued that the current package was too large.

Now that more people are being vaccinated and the country is getting back to work, he said, there’s not as much need for a big government stimulus. Mr. Wiley, 52, who lives in Secane, Pa., and builds transmissions for racing cars, said he worried that the Biden bill would unnecessarily add to the national debt.

“We’ve kind of mortgaged the future on this,” he said.

Yet, polling indicates that a notable portion of the Republican base is far more open to the bill. Last month, more than two-thirds of Republicans said they supported increasing individual payments to $2,000 from $600, which Mr. Trump had proposed but Senate Republicans had rejected. Nearly seven in 10 Republicans said it was important for the current bill to include $1,400 direct checks, according to the SurveyMonkey poll.

Many Republican voters who expressed concerns about the size of the stimulus package said they didn’t oppose the direct payments but worried about what they saw as extraneous provisions — like a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and $350 billion in aid for state and local governments.

“People need help right now, and I’m OK with my tax dollars doing that — I’d help feed my neighbors if they needed it,” said Melissa Karn, 53, a Trump voter from the Phoenix suburbs. “But I am not on board with sending money to rebuild and bail out cities that have not been run very well for years.”

Ms. Karn and other Trump supporters find little to like among their leaders in Congress who are making the same arguments, preferring the bombastic, burn-it-down style of the former president. They praised Republicans closely aligned with Mr. Trump, like Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, and offered scorn for those he has clashed with, like Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader.