Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/24/2010-5/27/2010. Registered Voters. MoE 2.8% (Last week's results in parentheses):
| FAVORABLE | UNFAVORABLE | NET CHANGE |
---|
PRESIDENT OBAMA | 54 (54) | 41 (42) | +1 |
| | | |
PELOSI: | 39 (38) | 51 (52) | +2 |
REID: | 31 (30) | 58 (58) | +1 |
McCONNELL: | 24 (25) | 61 (60) | -2 |
BOEHNER: | 22 (23) | 60 (58) | -3 |
| | | |
CONGRESSIONAL DEMS: | 37 (38) | 58 (57) | -2 |
CONGRESSIONAL GOPS: | 23 (24) | 67 (65) | -3 |
| | | |
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: | 39 (40) | 54 (53) | -2 |
REPUBLICAN PARTY: | 30 (31) | 64 (62) | -3 |
Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.
The general grumpiness that was evident in last week's edition of the tracking poll continued on a similar trajectory. The biggest point of distinction between this week and last week is that the brunt of the voter pessimism actually falls on the shoulders of the out-party this week.
Every Republican entity slides back this week, with falls between 2-3 points for all of the above. Meanwhile, the Democratic performances are mixed, with the individuals gaining incremental ground on their net favorabilities, and the party and the party-in-Congress taking two point hits.
The slide on the right track-wrong track metric that we saw last week continued this week, pressing the RT/WT ratio back down to 40/56.
In a strange converse, however, the Democrats actually perform incrementally better on the generic Congressional ballot, leading by a single point (47-46). One would expect that increased voter pessimism would fall on the head of the party in power. But what has happened, in this case, is that voters are returning to the pool of the undecided. Both Republicans and Democrats shed support this week. It just so happens that Republicans lose more of their support than do the Dems.
The implications of the national mood for the 2010 elections are still very much subject to interpretation. Tom Jensen of PPP has opined that universal pessimism works in the GOP's favor, because even a deeply unpopular challenger holds the prospect for change from the status quo. However, it also is quite evident that the GOP cannot win this thing on demonizing Democrats alone. That was the playbook in PA-12, and it came up well short of the goal.
Democratic losses in November are, to be blunt, somewhat inevitable. Two wave elections in a row leave no shortage of low-hanging fruit.
Yet despite the week-to-week variations in our data, there has been a very stubborn consistency. Democrats are not terribly beloved, but Republicans are even less so. It seems increasingly plausible that the failure of the Republican Party to reverse its own negative perceptions (which have held steady throughout the cycle) will limit their ability to exploit the national discontent.