Yet another poll shows that the Republican Party’s brand took a big hit from the 16-day government shutdown that came to an end last week. A majority of Americans now say it’s “bad for the country” that Republicans control the House of Representatives, the first time since 2010, according to a new CNN/ORC International poll released Monday.
Fifty-four percent said the GOP-controlled House is bad for the country while only 38% said it was a good thing. Just under a year ago, the same poll showed a slight majority believed it was good that Republicans had control of the House–and 43% said it was bad.
The poll, conducted after the shutdown ended, also found that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe Speaker John Boehner should lose his job running the House. While the American public may be eager to see someone new hold the speaker’s gavel, the conservative lawmakers who have the power to oust him have so far appeared unwilling. Congressional approval ratings remained low in the CNN/ORC poll–as they do in every poll–but improved to 12% from a low of 10% in September.
President Obama’s approval rating remained essentially unchanged from June at 44%. The president also continues to hold the lead over his Republican colleagues in Congress when asked who’s better suited to address the issues facing the nation, with 44% naming the president and 31% naming Republicans in Congress. That gap was at its smallest in March 2011 when 44% named Obama and 39% named the GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The answer that has grown in popularity over that time period is “neither” which 21% percent said today, up from 10% in 2011.
Support for the Affordable Care Act, which was at the center of the government shutdown debate as conservative Republicans tried and ultimately failed to see the law defunded or delayed, has maintained relatively strong numbers, even as reports of numerous glitches in the new healthcare.gov site. Forty-one percent of those questioned support the law but 56% oppose it–still a slight positive shift from when the question was last asked in the days leading up to the shutdown.
When support or opposition to the health reform law is broken down more closely, it appears that supporters of the law actually outnumber those who oppose it. Thirty-eight percent of those opposed to the law say it is too liberal, but another 12% oppose it because it is “not liberal enough.”
Morgan Whitaker