Tag: Polls
Two Months into Republicans’ Clown Car Primary, WSJ/NBC Poll Finds Voters Turning against the GOP – Again
In the midterm elections just two years ago, voters punished Democrats for the crime of passing universal health care by voting to give Republicans control of the House. Now, a new Wall St. Journal/NBC poll finds that these same voters appear to be changing their minds again:
55 percent of respondents — including 35 percent of Republicans — believe the Democratic Party does a better job than the GOP in appealing to those who aren’t hard-core supporters.How damaging has the primary season — with all of its debates, attack ads and scrutiny — been for the Republican Party?
Forty percent of all adults say the GOP contest so far has made them feel less favorable about the party, while 12 percent say they now have a more favorable impression. Forty-seven percent say it’s had no impact.
Even among Republicans, 23 percent maintain the primary season has given them a less favorable opinion of the party, versus 16 percent who say it’s been positive.
In addition, 55 percent of respondents — including 35 percent of Republicans — believe the Democratic Party does a better job than the GOP in appealing to those who aren’t hard-core supporters. Just 26 percent say the Republican Party does a better job on this front.
And, as we noted here, the poll found that Mitt Romney’s favorable rating has dropped down into George W. Bush territory. He has a 28 percent favorable rating among all respondents and a 22 percent favorable rating among independents.
Many Florida Republicans Not Ready to Choose
1 in 3
Number of registered Republican voters in Florida who say they are still making up their minds who to vote for in less than a week. Their candidates have one more “debate,” as the press conference/Greek chorus/American Idol/Survivor T.V. contests are called, before the Florida primary. Another 64% of Florida Republicans said they have made their choice and will stick with it.
New Low for Congress
11%
Americans who approve of how members of Congress are handling their jobs. The figure surpasses the previous low of 14%, set in August after the debt ceiling “debate,” which resulted in America’s credit rating being reduced to from AAA to AA+.
Growing Awareness of Income Inequality
66%
Believe there is “strong conflict” between the rich and poor in America. In 2009, the amount was 47%. The previously most cited source of conflict — between immigrants and the native-born — fell to 62%.
Fittingly, GOP Race in Iowa Becomes Contest for Third Place
The latest polling out of Iowa suggests that Ron Paul is in the lead, Mitt Romney is in second place and that any one of four losers could “win” third place. Here is analysis from Nate Silver:
One or more of the three who do not “win” third place in Iowa will likely drop out sometime next month, probably before they have to compete in the first expensive, big-state primary in Florida, on Tuesday, January 31.
The most interesting thing about the latest polls in Iowa … is that they essentially show a four-way tie for third place among the Republican presidential contenders, with Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry all projected to receive between 11 and 14 percent of the vote.
This is especially interesting because these candidates, with the partial exception of Mr. Gingrich, have very similar platforms to one another. They are hoping for support from many of the same demographic groups, especially evangelical voters, and have struck many of the same themes in their attempts to appeal to caucus-goers.
If these candidates could somehow combine forces, they could very easily win the caucuses. Even if you exclude Mr. Gingrich from the group, Mr. Santorum, Mrs. Bachmann and Mr. Perry collectively have about 34 percent of the vote, well above the projected figure for either Ron Paul or Mitt Romney, the candidates leading the polls.
I cannot recall another instance in which you had a configuration of candidates quite like this one. I’m sure there have been cases in the past where you had a multi-way tie for second or third place in advance of a primary or caucus. But probably not one in which the candidates involved in the deadlock were so similar, or when they were each within striking distance of first place.
Why do we care who comes in third in Iowa? Because one or more of the three who don’t “win” third place will likely drop out sometime next month, probably before they have to compete in the first expensive, big-state primary in Florida, on Tuesday, January 31.
Nate Silver is being polite when he refers to the voters these bottom-feeder candidates have been competing for as “evangelicals.” In reality, these voters are anti-democratic Christianist theocrats and adherents of hate groups like the Family Leader, the American Family Association, the Family Research Council and the rest of the racist, Republican Party front groups with deceptively homespun-sounding names.
None of these candidates will ever be president, not in a million years, so their being forced to drop out next month will abruptly shove them off of the national media soap box from which they have been spewing anti-gay rhetoric and racist dog whistle messaging for the past year.
Good riddance. It can’t come a minute too soon.
Marriage? Not So Much
51%
Of American adults are married, a record low. The numbers are even lower among young people. In 1960, nearly 60% of adults age 18 to 29 were married. Today, the amount is 20%. The Pew Research study doesn’t count same-sex marriage, but includes a “family” category for gay couples raising children.
Poll: Mainstream Republicans Share Only Tenuous Ties with Tea Party
Not all Republicans are comfortable in tin foil tricorn hats, according to a recent CNN poll. In fact about half don’t consider themselves active tea party supporters.
…roughly half (49 percent) of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they support the tea party movement or are active members, with roughly half (51 percent) saying that they have no feelings one way or another about the tea party or that they oppose the movement.
More education is correlated with more tea partyism, which is odd until you remember that education is also associated with greater income. And no matter how successful the movement’s founders, Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe, have been at portraying it as a grassroots effort, the tea party is all about protecting the assets of old, rich, cranky white guys.
Like Ron Paul, tea partiers are incoherent on social issues
…tea party Republicans are more likely to be male, older, and college educated, with non-tea party Republicans more likely to be younger, less educated, female, and less likely to say they are born-again or evangelical. Both groups are predominantly white.
Study: Tea Party Is Least Popular Group
Over the past week or so, there has been considerable coverage of the results of new study on the tea party that tracked the rise of the “movement” from 2006.
The tea party is really nothing more than the same racist social conservatives who have been seeking dominion over American politics since the Reagan era.
The first news that came out of the study, which was introduced by its authors — David E. Campbell, an associate professor of political science at Notre Dame, and Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard, who are also the co-authors of the book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us” — in a New York Times’ piece titled, “Crashing the Tea Party,” was that they found yet more evidence that the most durable myth about the phenomenon — that it is a grassroots uprising of what Profs. Campbell and Putnam called “nonpartisan political neophytes” — is patently false.
To the contrary, their research underscored what many observers have long-suspected — that the tea party is really nothing more than the same racist social conservatives who have been seeking dominion over American politics since the Reagan era.
But there was another finding from the study that is even more damning of the fake grassroots tea party phenomenon — a factor that makes the tea party’s total domination over Republican Party leaders in Congress even more puzzling:
Boehner’s Favorable Rating Drops 10 Points
A second national poll released after the tea party threatened to force the United States into default during the debt-ceiling negotiations finds voters holding an unfavorable view of the GOP tea party in particular.
The tea party’s favorability declined from six percentage points, from 37 percent in July to 31 percent now
On Aug. 5, a CBS/NYT poll found that 40 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the tea party, the highest percentage recorded since CBS/NYT started polling the question.
Now a CNN poll finds that the hostage-taking tactics of the Republicans and their dominant fringe minority may have taken a toll on their collective public support, according to Huffington Post:
