Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 9/21/2009-9/24/2009. All adults. MoE 2% (Last weeks results in parentheses):
| FAVORABLE | UNFAVORABLE | NET CHANGE |
|---|
| PRESIDENT OBAMA | 54 (55) | 38 (38) | -1 |
| | | |
| PELOSI: | 34 (34) | 57 (58) | +1 |
| REID: | 31 (30) | 57 (58) | +2 |
| McCONNELL: | 18 (19) | 64 (63) | -2 |
| BOEHNER: | 12 (13) | 63 (63) | -1 |
| | | |
| CONGRESSIONAL DEMS: | 38 (39) | 57 (56) | -2 |
| CONGRESSIONAL GOPS: | 17 (18) | 70 (69) | -2 |
| | | | |
| DEMOCRATIC PARTY: | 40 (41) | 50 (50) | -1 |
| REPUBLICAN PARTY: | 22 (23) | 68 (67) | -2 |
Full crosstabs here. This poll is updated every Friday morning, and you can see trendline graphs here.
The trend in this week's incarnation of the Daily Kos State of the Nation weekly tracking poll is the distinct absence of trends. Most of the entities polled saw their numbers dip an insignificant point or two, save for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, who continued a mild recovery from losses that came at the end of the summer.
So, where do things stand, now that things seem to have levelled off after the tumult that came with the past several weeks?
While the gap between the parties certainly narrowed over the course of the summer, there still remains a sizeable gap in the public esteem in the two parties which favors the Democrats. In other words, while the Democrats took an undeniable hit as of late, they still remain more popular than the GOP (or...to perhaps put it more accurately...they still remain less unpopular than the GOP. This is a fact that is confirmed by recent surveys by pollsters as diverse as Democracy Corps and Gallup. If you look at our tracking poll graphically, the difference between the two parties is apparent:
That gap remains apparent, even if you ask more specifically about the favorabilities of the party's representatives in Congress. In fact, the gap in voter sentiments when asked specifically about members of Congress is even wider:
Despite issues that even some Democrats have with their two Congressional leaders, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi remain decidedly more popular than their counterparts in the GOP:
This, of course, flies in the face of the Beltway conventional wisdom, which portends that 2010 will be a neverending buffet of doom for the Democratic Party.
And while it is never wise to make predictions thirteen months out, it is worth noting the following: it would be, at least in recent history, unprecedented for an unpopular political party to be supplanted by an even more unpopular political party.
