There’s some significant good news for the Republican Party: a new USA Today/Gallup Poll finds the party’s image is net-positive for the first time since 2005 — and the poll suggests both parties are now on more or less equal footing in terms of image as they head into 2012:
Americans’ opinions of the Republican Party have improved to the point where now more have a favorable than unfavorable opinion of the party. The last time more Americans viewed the GOP more positively than negatively was in 2005.
…..For the early part of the 2000s, Americans had a net-positive image of the Republican Party. That changed in 2005, as Americans soured on the Bush administration over the ongoing Iraq war, the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and rising gas prices, among other issues. After the 2006 midterm elections, which saw Americans remove the Republicans as the majority party in Congress, the Republicans’ ratings were 35% favorable and 58% unfavorable.The Republican Party’s image remained negative over the next two years as the economy worsened, except for a 47%-47% reading after the party’s well-received national convention in 2008, which ended days before the financial crisis intensified. Just after Americans elected Barack Obama to replace Bush later that year, the Republicans’ net-favorable score was -27 (34% favorable, 61% unfavorable) — the worst Gallup has measured in this trend dating to 1992.
Meanwhile, Gallup finds the Democratic Party’s image is among the worst for Democrats since 1992, but is an improvement from last year. And the implications?
The two parties’ ratings are now generally similar, suggesting they are starting off on relatively equal footing as a Democratic president and Senate, and a Republican House of Representatives attempt to govern the nation over the next two years. The parties made a show of bipartisanship at Tuesday’s State of the Union by having their members sit together rather than in separate sections. Such attempts at working together likely would have a positive impact on how Americans view the two parties.
This fits in with a point I’ve made repeatedly over the past few months: the 2012 race may be decided by which party oversteps the most and disgusts the American “center” — which includes independent voters — the most, as opposed to which voters find the most appealing. And the Gallup poll now gives us the context: both parties are now starting off at about the same level in a race to see which one turns off the greatest number of people.
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.