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As Congress nears a vote on the tax cut deal reached between President Obama and Republicans, two new polls out today find Americans broadly supportive of the plan, including majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats alike.

Nearly 7 in 10 Americans in an ABC News/Washington Post poll said they support the package, which the poll noted would include extending the Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits, cutting Social Security payroll taxes by 2 percentage points and increasing the exemption on inheritance taxes. More than two-thirds, 68 percent, of Democrats and independents said they supported it, as did 75 percent of Republicans.

Even when respondents in a separate question were given arguments for both sides of the debate, including that the plan would increase the federal budget deficit by $900 billion, 62 percent said they supported it.

Similarly, 60 percent in a Pew poll released today said they approved of the agreement reached by the president and congressional Republicans to “extend tax cuts and unemployment benefits.” And like in the ABC News/Washington Post poll, that included majorities on both sides of the political aisle.

At the same time, both polls found that while support for the plan is broad, it is not deep. Just 20 percent in the ABC News/Washington Post poll said they supported it strongly, as did just 12 percent in the Pew poll.

The public is less supportive of several individual elements in the deal than it is for the plan taken as a whole, perhaps partly explaining its soft support. While 72 percent in the ABC News/Washington Post poll backed extending unemployment benefits, fewer, 54 percent, said they supported extending the Bush-era tax cuts, 52 percent said they favored increasing the exemption on inheritance taxes and most opposed cutting Social Security payroll taxes.

Each poll was conducted nationwide Dec. 9-12 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted among 1,001 adults and the Pew Research Center poll was conducted among 1,011 adults.

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An analysis by the Pew Research Center of its midterm election polls found a pro-Republican bias in samples based on interviews conducted only by land-line telephones, compared with ones that also included cellphones. The finding sends a stark warning to pollsters across the country as attention turns to the 2012 presidential election.

The report found that while Republican House candidates held the advantage among likely voters across three national Pew polls conducted before the midterm elections, their lead was about 5 percentage points larger on average in the land-line-only sample than in the one that included cellphones. The results based only on land-line interviews proved to be less accurate.

For example, looking just at their final pre-election poll this fall, Republicans were ahead by 12 points among likely voters in the land-line-only sample. In the sample that included both land-line and cellphone interviews, Republicans held a 6-point lead – much closer to the Election Day results.

Pollsters have been debating the use of cellphones in polls for years, but this latest analysis underscores the peril of excluding them today. Pew found that the average difference in results between land-line-only samples, and ones that included cellphones  had grown since 2008.

About 1 in 4 adults in the United States are now “cell only.” At the same time, the report found that the differences they discovered were not just a result of including voters who only have cellphones, but also including those who have cellphones and land lines. These voters, Pew finds, “are younger, more likely to be black or Hispanic, less likely to be college graduates, less conservative and more Democratic in their vote preference than dual users reached by land line.”

It will be interesting to see how pollsters adjust based on the findings. Like Pew, The New York Times uses land-lines phones and cellphones in their polls. But many others still exclude cellphones, including state and local polls in particular. Pew’s finding is especially challenging for automated polls, like Rasmussen Reports, because the law requires that cellphone numbers be  dialed by people, not computers.

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While voters appeared to send a clear message to the Democratic-controlled Congress on Election Day, new polls out this week find no apparent public consensus about how to deal with some of the key issues facing the country, and underscore the obstacles facing Congress as it tries to reduce the budget deficit.

On health care, 47 percent of registered voters in a Quinnipiac University poll said Congress should repeal the law that passed earlier this year. But about as many said the health care law should be left as is (18 percent) or expanded (30 percent).

Turning toward the debate about what to do with the Bush-era tax cuts, 43 percent of voters said they should be kept only for those earning less than $250,000 a year, while 35 percent said they should be continued for all households, and 14 percent said Congress should allow them to expire for everyone.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll also found the public split about the tax cuts. And in an ominous sign for Congress as it tries to tackle the deficit, the poll found 70 percent of Americans saying they were uncomfortable with the idea of spending cuts to programs like Medicare, Social Security and defense. Nearly 6 in 10 said they were uncomfortable with increasing tax revenues that would include a rise in the gasoline tax, limiting deductions on some home mortgages and making changes to corporate taxes. And 57 percent said they were uncomfortable with increasing the Social Security retirement age to 69 over the next 60 years.

At the same time, Americans are most apt to say that the highest priority for the next Congress should be spending to create jobs. In the Quinnipiac poll, 45 percent said so, while 32 percent said the highest priority should be reducing the deficit and 17 percent said it should be cutting taxes.

The polls also send a message to Republicans that, the election results notwithstanding, they still have a lot of work to do to gain favor among the public. Just 27 percent of voters in the Quinnipiac poll said they approved of the way Republicans in Congress were handling their job. And just 34 percent of Americans in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll said they had positive feelings toward the Republican Party.

Those results echoed the Election Day exit-poll results, in which a majority of voters said they had an unfavorable view of the Republican Party, and about as many as had an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party.

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted by telephone Nov. 8-15 among 2,424 registered voters nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was conducted by telephone Nov. 11-15 among 1,000 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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