WSJ/NBC Poll Released
[Guest post by DRJ]
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reveals discontent among Americans that favors Republicans:
“The findings suggest that public opinion has hardened in advance of the 2010 elections, making it tougher for Democrats to translate their legislative successes, or a tentatively improving U.S. economy, into gains among voters.
Republicans have reassembled their coalition by reconnecting with independents, seniors, blue-collar voters, suburban women and small town and rural voters—all of whom had moved away from the party in the 2006 elections, in which Republicans lost control of the House. Those voter groups now favor GOP control of Congress.
“This data is what it looks like when Republicans assemble what for them is a winning coalition,” said GOP pollster Bill McInturff, who conducts the survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.
He said the Republican alliance appeared to be “firmer and more substantial” than earlier in the year.”
Here are the complete poll results. Incumbents of both Parties also have reason for concern since only 20% of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing. One-third say they “almost never” trust Washington to do what’s right — “about triple the number who felt that way when the question was asked in October.”
Americans are evenly split between these two options, with each garnering 47%:
Statement A: America needs more sense of community and people helping one another.
Statement B: America needs more self-reliance and personal responsibility.
Similarly, 47% agree and 47% disagree with this statement: “The economic and political systems in the country are stacked against people like me.”
The results show more support for the Arizona immigration law:
“Among all adults, support is high for the new Arizona law that makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and requires law enforcement officers to question people if they have reasonable suspicions about their immigration status.
Some 64% said they strongly or somewhat supported the law, compared with 34% who strongly or somewhat opposed it.
Divisions were even sharper between whites and Hispanics. Among Hispanic respondents, 70% opposed the law, while 69% of whites in the survey supported it.
The survey oversampled Hispanics to increase accuracy.”
I assume they oversampled Hispanics to get a lower margin of error for that subgroup.
The one issue virtually everyone agrees on? 81% are somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with state of the economy.
— DRJ
What legislative successes are they talking about?
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/12/2010 @ 11:18 pmwhat tentatively improving U.S. economy are they talking about?
Walt Kowalski (fb8750) — 5/12/2010 @ 11:49 pmi’m perfectly “satisfied with the economy” because i realize that, given the stupid things that have been done in in the last year or so, this is exactly what i expected for the results.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 5/12/2010 @ 11:52 pmi’m not ‘happy’ with the economy, but until Ear Leader and the twat waffles are shown the door, this is all we can expect.
Call me crazy, but I don’t see those two options as being mutually exclusive.
Onus (8b343b) — 5/13/2010 @ 6:36 amThe problem with polls… is they never seem to ask the right questions.
I used to be ok with the thought of picking a lesser of two evils candidate. Now I find it upsetting. We’ve been taken down this path of having no choice but to vote for a candidate that favors a big, central government. They may differ on what that government does, but it will remain big.
How does a poll account for that? Small swings toward the party not in power; people in desparate hope that the other party will be better this time. Good luck with that.
Corwin (ea9428) — 5/13/2010 @ 7:00 amThe American people are split:
quasimodo (4af144) — 5/13/2010 @ 7:58 am47% pay little or no taxes and the rest are split on whether this is a good thing. So we’re stuck with a Socialist regime.
“Nearly one-third of respondents said they “almost never” trust the government in Washington to do what is right—about triple the number who felt that way when the question was asked in October.”
So, of the two-thirds left, how many said the “never” trust the government?
Corwin (ea9428) — 5/13/2010 @ 8:35 amWhatever the actual poll numbers show, the interpretation sucks. WSJ writers, Wallsten, Bendavid and Spencer are blind to the forces actually behind the views of respondents.
False attribution is rampant. The writers use language like “Republicans have solidified support…” or “Republicans have reassembled their coalition…” Pure poppycock!
It’s nothing of the sort, as the rejection of Bill Bennett by Republicans in Utah shows. Neither the GOP establishment nor Republican office holders have reconnected “… with independents, seniors, blue-collar voters, suburban women and small town and rural voters…”
Quite the contrary, the GOP’s Conservative base despises party leaders and is fed up with their lies and excuses, most particularly the base is appalled by the GOP’s cowardice and their collaboration with Obama’s agenda, most specifically TARP, Stimulus, and all the other financial sector takeovers.
The writers mistake widespread general opposition to Obama and Congressional Democrats as support for the GOP. They say, “…voter groups now favor GOP control of Congress.” Not true, the correlation may fit with conventional thinking, but as any open-minded observer can see, there’s nothing conventional about this mid-term election.
GOP pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart opines, “This data is what it looks like when Republicans assemble what for them is a winning coalition…”
Wrong! This data shows voters are opposed to Obama and his agenda of fundamental transformation, McIntruff and Hart just aren’t able to read the handwriting on the wall.
ropelight (f60615) — 5/13/2010 @ 8:45 amWell they usually infer the other way, ropelight, give them points for that
ian cormac (c19bdd) — 5/13/2010 @ 8:58 amI think that the Bennett result may finally get the narcissists in the GOP to understand what’s really going on with the broader electorate outside of DC. They better get with the program soon, or else.
Dmac (21311c) — 5/13/2010 @ 1:40 pmThe critical factor, as I see it, is whether the tea parties stick with it, get on GOP central committees and start to swing the helm on the ocean liner before we hit the iceberg.
Republicans and Democrats are basically alike except they spout rhetoric designed to appeal to the parties they represent. They are more aligned with the base before the primary and more “centrist” in the general election. However, they all came up from being staffers for the previous generation of hacks. Some are the children of hacks, like Bennett and Dodd, whose father was censured by the Senate for corruption. Mollohan, who just lost his primary in WV, is the son of another hack who became a millionaire as a Congressman for a poor WV district.
It’s not new. Lyndon Johnson was dirt poor until he became a Congressman. They all have their wives working in the office and their kids in other cynosure jobs. The only people in Washington who know what they are doing are staffers. Those are the people who wrote the health care bill, and snuck some sweet deals for themselves into it, too.
What is different is that Congressional log rolling and outright corruption was a little sand in the gears of the economy 50 years ago. Let alone 100 years ago. Now, the government is too big for us to ignore its dicking around in the economy.
The press calls the Republicans “the stupid party” and there is some reason for it. When I was on the CMA commission on legislation, I spent quite a bit of time in Sacramento. I met a lot of these people. You know what ? I would rather have lobbyists writing bills than these hacks. All they know is how to glad hand and ask for money. Governing is somebody else’s job, usually the staff members.
I met one really sharp guy in the legislature. I’ve forgotten his name but it was Hispanic and he was really bright and knowledgeable. His area was healthcare and we spent some time with him, inviting him to retreats, etc. I thought he had promise even if he was a Democrat.
But he became an alcoholic and had a couple of drunk driving accidents, partially hushed up, but his career dribbled away.
There just aren’t many who are bright and study topics to do a better job. I wouldn’t mind if they hadn’t acquired so much power the last 50 years.
Mike K (8df289) — 5/13/2010 @ 1:47 pm=================================================================
Q: What sort of dunderheaded idiocy finds these two at odds, much less mutually exclusive?
One is about the behavior of people as a collective.
The other is about the behavior of people as individuals.
They aren’t even close to mutually exclusive.
:-/
People SHOULD be sharing and helpful to one another. Individuals should never EXPECT anything from those around them, however.
—– Grover Cleveland’s Veto of the Texas Seed Bill — February 16, 1887
Where are today’s men like that who understand the limits of government power? And why are we NOT electing them?
IgotBupkis (79d71d) — 5/13/2010 @ 11:24 pm