Down, down, down.
Conservatives spent the morning trying to convince themselves that they were "winning" the battle over government shutdown. If any of them actually believed that claptrap, two new polls from ABC News/
Washington Post and Pew should disabuse them.
First up, ABC/WaPo:
Seventy percent in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll disapprove of how the Republicans in Congress are handling the budget negotiations, up 7 percentage points from a week ago. Far fewer, 51 percent, disapprove of Obama’s approach, essentially unchanged in the past week.
- As compared to last week, Obama disapproval on budget talks is +1 to 51 percent, congressional Democrats are +5 to 61 percent, and congressional Republicans are +7 to 70 percent.
- The net margins are even more dramatic. Obama is -6 at 45-61 (it was -9 last week, so an improvement). Democrats are -26 at 35-61. Republicans are at a whopping -46, or 24-70. Or put yet another way, Obama has a net 40-point advantage on the issue over congressional Republicans. Last week, it was just 28 points.
- Republicans are more divided internally. A total of 45 percent of Republicans disapprove of Republicans in Congress. That's nearly half. A total of 36 percent of Democrats disapprove of their own caucus, or just over a third.
- The only people who approve of congressional Republicans are those who are "very conservative", and even those guys only narrowly approve, 50-47.
- Women disapprove of congressional Republicans 20-75, and non-whites disapprove 16-78. Luckily for Republicans, they no longer care about rebranding.
- GOP losing big ground among Americans making over $100K. Looks like people who have them don't want to see their investments wiped out.
Pew:
Republicans are taking more blame for the shutdown than the Obama administration, but only by a slim margin. By 38% to 30%, more say that Republicans are to blame for the government shutdown than the Obama administration; 19% volunteer that both sides are equally to blame. Two weeks ago, about as many said they would blame Republicans (39%) as the Obama administration (36%) if the federal government shut down.
What was a three-point Obama advantage on the question is now an eight-point one, showing that public opinion is trending away from the GOP.
Surprisingly, Democrats are just as opposed to concessions to the GOP as Republicans are of concessions to Democrats. Historically, Democrats have been far more likely to demand compromise than Republicans, undercutting Democratic efforts at unity and resilience. This means that it isn't just our caucus that is learning that stand strong, but the Democratic base as well. Progress!
