Bad news for the GOP: the party’s favorability rating is in a nosedive and — by comparison — the Democrats are looking better to more voters. Results of a new poll by the respected Pew Research Center:
The Republican Party’s image has grown more negative over the first half of this year. Currently, 32% have a favorable impression of the Republican Party, while 60% have an unfavorable view. Favorable views of the GOP have fallen nine percentage points since January. The Democratic Party continues to have mixed ratings (48% favorable, 47% unfavorable).
The Democratic Party has often held an edge over the GOP in favorability in recent years, but its advantage had narrowed following the Republicans’ midterm victory last fall. Today, the gap is as wide as it has been in more than two years.
Part of the party’s problem: many Republicans aren’t happy with their own party:
Republicans, in particular, are now more critical of their own party than they were a few months ago. About two-thirds (68%) express a favorable opinion of their party, the lowest share in more than two years. Six months ago, 86% of Republicans viewed the GOP positively.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted July 14-20, 2015 among 2,002 adults, finds little change in more specific perceptions of the two parties.
Also, as I’ve noted here in many posts, part of the current GOP’s problem is that it has become the party of the base for the base and by the base (which is often inspired by conservative talk show hosts)– being seen by many voters who might not be smitten with the Democrats and Barack Obama as a party more extreme than the Democrats. Here’s a bit more of Pew’s article:
As has been the case over the past four years, the Republican Party is viewed as more extreme in its positions than the Democratic Party. Currently, 52% say the GOP is more extreme, compared with 35% who say this better describes the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party continues to hold wide advantages over the Republicans on empathy and honesty. By 53% to 31%, the Democratic Party is viewed as “more concerned with the needs of people like me.” And the Democrats hold a 16-point lead on governing in an honest and ethical way (45% to 29%).
Neither party has an edge in perceptions about which could better manage the federal government: 40% say the Republican Party, while an identical percentage prefers the Democrats.
A graph from the poll:
Here’s the Republican Party’s problem in a nutshell:
1. The party establishment wants to win and is at odds with many in the rank and file who want raw meat rhetoric and take no political prisoners. The party machinery can’t respond quickly enough in the way the party base (which includes some bloggers) demands in veering more to the right and running even faster away from its post-Romney-defeat autopsy — which suggested a slew of things the party should consider to win. More than ever, the GOP seems like The Political Talk Show Party.
2. The party is now stuck in Sarah Palin Syndrome: it seems to have little serious desire to expand its existing coalition, and aggregate more interests and groups. Rather, it’s preaching to the same choir, using the same music that the choir loves and knows — while ignoring the larger audience that may not like the music the choir loves, or may be sick of hearing it.
3. Due to virtual political cowardice, except for a few recent exceptions, the Donald Trump political break-out points out more than ever how many Republicans will follow and echo someone who offers no real policies but just articulates resentment, barely veiled bigotry, and demonstrates won’t-back-down-ever in-your-face combativeness. Specific policies and affirmative ideas? That’s oh, so 20th century.
This may play well with Republicans but to those who are not — including some voters who feel the Democratic Party needs to be more centrist or people who were once considered moderate Republicans or more traditional conservative Republicans like those who proudly supported the first George Bush — it’s like watching an old episode of the 1960s Joe Pyne Show, where the talk show pioneer featured a parade of political Twilight Zoners.
None of this is to say that a GOP that has poor favorability ratings can’t find a path to national power.
But by not wooing (or even respecting) voters who aren’t conservatives and seemingly veering more to the right and appearing as the Talk Show Party, a national path to power will likely become more difficult.
And not impossible: 1)a Democratic Party presidential candidate can run a lousy campaign and/or 2)Democrats who don’t get the Presidential candidate of their choice can do what Democrats are historically so good at doing: stay home to teach their party a lesson and then bitterly complain later when Republicans (correctly and legally) use the power they won in an election to appoint judges and implement policies Democrats don’t like.
UPDATE: Ed Kilgore:
Part of the problem is that Republicans themselves are less enthusiastic, which is a bit strange since they are being offered the largest presidential field in recent memory. Perhaps it is the inability to blame Congress’ fecklessness on Harry Reid any more.
Interestingly, despite or because of all the shrieking among Republicans about the world being this terrible place where no American is safe, the GOP advantage on foreign policy has vanished since the last Pew survey on the parties in February, and its advantage on “the terrorist threat at home” has been cut in half. But perhaps most significantly, views of the two parties on economic policy are pretty stable for now.
Any way you slice it, any thoughts by Republicans that the landscape is tilting in their direction in this cycle really come down to the fairly abstract notion of an electorate that thinks it’s time for a change after the Obama administration. If contrary to that notion this turns out to be a “two futures” election in which voters are simply comparing the two parties and their candidates, the landscape just isn’t tilting Right.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.