A CNN poll released today indicates that among the 930 people surveyed, only 33% have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, while a remarkable 59% have an unfavorable one. (And it’s not like they love the Democrats; that party’s favorable-unfavorable breakdown is 47-47.)
Interestingly, the Republican Party is actually viewed more negatively than even the Tea Party movement, which rates 31% favorable versus 51% unfavorable.
(Update: I should have noted that while the Democrat’s ratings have been fairly stable in this poll for more than a year, the Republicans have gone from 44-48 in March to 41-55 less than a month ago down to 33-59 today.)
(Update: Republican Party chair Reince Priebus was asked about this on CNN and attributed his own party’s recent rapid drop in favorability to Americans’ dissatisfaction with — I am not making this up — Barack Obama and “Obamacare.” More here.)
(More update: Danny Mickol pointed out on The Daily Show’s Facebook page that if you take all the vowels out of “Reince Priebus” you’re left with “RNC PR BS.” And speaking of The Daily Show, correspondent Wyatt Cenac once pointed out, in character as Puppet Michael Steele, that “Reince Priebus” sounds like something you’d see on a final at Hogwarts.)
Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has the highest unfavorable rating in the top Congressional leadership, with favorable-unfavorable numbers of 31-51 (just like the Tea Party), while Republican Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, has the lowest favorable rating, 21-39.
Top-ranking Democratic Senator Harry Reid stands at 28-39, while Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, who barely had the support of his own party during much of the recent debt ceiling hostage crisis created by the far right, has favorable-unfavorable numbers that by comparison don’t look so bad: 33-40. But that’s still only a third viewing him favorably.
As one would, alas, expect in the U.S., a substantial percentage of those surveyed say they’ve never even heard of the persons in question. More than a fourth say they’ve never heard of Senator McConnell, which is remarkable given that he’s the only member of Congress with a face that strikingly resembles a sea turtle’s. At the other extreme, only 9% say they’ve never heard of Nancy Pelosi.
Curiously, 5% say they’ve never heard of the Tea Party, and amusingly, 1% insist they’ve never heard of the Republican Party, which sounds to me like denial.
Finally, asked whether they thought their own Representative in the House deserved to be reelected next year, only 41% said yes versus 49% who said no. This is a remarkable result, because never before in the history of the CNN poll have fewer than half said their Representative did not deserver reelection.
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