Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos & SEIU. 3/15-16. Registered voters. MoE ±3.1% (no trendlines):
Will Mitt Romney ever be able to deliver a death-blow to Rick Santorum's campaign? Some day, yes—perhaps even tonight. But we wanted to find out what kind of effect his failure to do so so far has had on the GOP's image.
Q: Has the Republican presidential primary given you a more favorable or less favorable impression of the Republican Party, or has it not made a difference?
More favorable: 14
Less favorable: 57
No difference: 26
Not sure: 2
Oof! That is brutal! This long primary season, respondents say, has definitely damaged their views of the Republican Party. But here's the best—and funniest—part:
Even self-identified Republicans feel worse, not better, about their own party! Only 26% say they have a more favorable impression of the GOP, while 37% say they have a less favorable one. Some, undoubtedly, are tea partiers furious that Republicans aren't showing America what a "true conservative" looks like, but others must surely be rank-and-file voters burying their faces in their hands at every Romney or Santorum or Gingrich gaffe. Oh, the agony!
For all the non-Republicans out there, the GOP primary has been an even bigger joke. Remarkably, Democrats and independents have very similar feelings about the whole affair, with Dems saying they take a dimmer view of the Republican Party by a 7-73 margin and independents by a 9-64 spread. Pundits who love to salivate over independent voters need to ask how the GOP can possibly appeal to this segment when everything they've done for the past year apparently has turned indies off.
We also asked the same question about the primary's effect on respondents' views of Mitt Romney, and the results were similar: By a 16-51 margin, Americans say they have a less favorable impression of Romney thanks to the primary. He really better hope he can end it soon.
P.S. As always, our weekly job approval numbers are available on our polling home page. Note that Barack Obama only saw slight declines despite our sample coming up extremely red this week: 38% identified as Republicans and just 35% as Democrats. I'm not sure we ever see more Rs than Ds, so the fact that Obama's job approval dropped only three net points is actually quite a good sign.