Suffolk University-USA Today Poll: GOP's popularity 'is in freefall'

[WilliamSeger]

GOP unfavorability up 7 points since June, 14 points since March.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...is-in-freefall

Originally Posted by TheHill

Registered voters are increasingly turning away from the Republican Party and looking to the Democrats to solve America's biggest problems, according to a new poll.


A Suffolk University-USA Today survey released Thursday shows that 62 percent of respondents now have an unfavorable view of the GOP, a 7-point jump in unpopularity for the party since the same poll in June. Just under half, 48 percent, feel the same way about the Democrats.


The poll found that 43 percent of voters look to congressional Democrats to protect families when it comes to health care, compared to 15 percent who trust President Trump on health care and less than 10 percent who say the Republican Party should lead the way.


“The Republican Party is in freefall,” said Suffolk University poll director David Paleologos. “In March the GOP had a 48 percent unfavorable rating, in June the negative swelled to 55 percent. Today the GOP unfavorable is 62 percent. What’s next?”

[Trebuchet]

Fake News!

[Tero]

Well, the party does not actually do anything. Unless
-you are the1%
-you work making military stuff
-guns babies and Jesus

[Toontown]

They sold their souls for "plenty of power", as Trump promised.

Maybe there really is a God. Except maybe He's not out to trick the people the Evangelists think He's out to trick.

Maybe He's out to trick the people who will worship an evil God and sell out to an evil politiker for an empty promise of POWAH.

Maybe they've got it backwards who is the wheat and who is the chaff.

Nah. Just kidding.

[CapelDodger]

Originally Posted by Toontown

Maybe there really is a God.

And maybe She's black. Wouldn't that be a hoot?

[jnelso99]

Originally Posted by Tero

-guns babies fetuses and Jesus

FTFY. They don't give a rat's patoot about you once you're born.

[CapelDodger]

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger

GOP unfavorability up 7 points since June, 14 points since March.

Hardly surprising when a nominally Republican President is trash-talking them on a regular basis.

That aside, I don't think the current student generation regards the GOP's obsessions as in any way relevant to their lives and concerns. The Tories on this side of the Pond have the same problem. What new blood they can attract is, by definition, freakish and does more harm than good.

Today's GOP is a state-of-the-art power machine for the world of the 80's and 90's, and obsolescent in this world created by the Thatcher-Reagan revolution, aka the Chicago School Discontinuity.

[Nova Land]

Originally Posted by TheHill

Registered voters are increasingly turning away from the Republican Party and looking to the Democrats to solve America's biggest problems, according to a new poll.

A Suffolk University-USA Today survey released Thursday shows that 62 percent of respondents now have an unfavorable view of the GOP, a 7-point jump in unpopularity for the party since the same poll in June. Just under half, 48 percent, feel the same way about the Democrats.

I agree the 7-point increase in unfavorability is bad news for the Republican Party, and something I hope will make some of the more reasonable members of the Republican Party re-think the policies their party has been supporting and the directions their party has been going.

But the poll should not be taken as good news for Democrats. Keep in mind that this is a national poll. But what might be more relevant would be state polls.

And in state polls taken previously, Democratic Party approval is abysmal in many parts of the country. As I recall, Democratic Party approval was under 22% in some parts of the country. Trump's approval ratings at the time were low, but the Democratic Party's ratings were lower.

That's something Democrats need to worry about and take seriously. Higher approval ratings for Democrats in large states such as California may raise the average approval rating for Democrats in national polls such as this one, but those places where Democratic approval is in the toilet still remain. Democrats will continue to lose elections in those many parts of the country where that's the case until Democrats accept that there's a real problem and find ways to fix it.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by CapelDodger

Hardly surprising when a nominally Republican President is trash-talking them on a regular basis.

That aside, I don't think the current student generation regards the GOP's obsessions as in any way relevant to their lives and concerns. The Tories on this side of the Pond have the same problem. What new blood they can attract is, by definition, freakish and does more harm than good.

Both have been doing well with nativism.

[Roger Ramjets]

Originally Posted by Nova Land

And in state polls taken previously, Democratic Party approval is abysmal in many parts of the country. As I recall, Democratic Party approval was under 22% in some parts of the country...

Democrats will continue to lose elections in those many parts of the country where that's the case until Democrats accept that there's a real problem and find ways to fix it.

Democrats will never win over states where they have so little support. There only one solution - start another civil war, and this time finish the job!

[Segnosaur]

Originally Posted by Nova Land

But the poll should not be taken as good news for Democrats. Keep in mind that this is a national poll. But what might be more relevant would be state polls.

And in state polls taken previously, Democratic Party approval is abysmal in many parts of the country.

It is true that there are states that the Democrats have pretty much no chance at winning. (Mainly rural states in the deep south and mid-west).

But there are many battleground states where either the state swings back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, or is Republican but with a relatively slim margin of victory. If its true that the Republicans are loosing support (and it actually is a long term trend, not some minor blip), then the swing states may turn solidly democrat, and the marginal Republican states may even become more competitive (even swinging towards the Democrats on occasion). In that situation, the Democrats would have a stranglehold on power even if they fail to win places like Utah and Alabama.

What would a 7% shift mean on a state-by-state basis in the last presidential election?
- Places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan would never have gone republican
- Texas and Arizona would now become battleground states
- Places like Colorado and Virginia (won by less than 10% in the last presidential election) would become completely out of reach of the republicans

Good luck winning an election under those circumstances.

[McHrozni]

Originally Posted by Nova Land

I agree the 7-point increase in unfavorability is bad news for the Republican Party, and something I hope will make some of the more reasonable members of the Republican Party re-think the policies their party has been supporting and the directions their party has been going.

But the poll should not be taken as good news for Democrats. Keep in mind that this is a national poll. But what might be more relevant would be state polls.

And in state polls taken previously, Democratic Party approval is abysmal in many parts of the country. As I recall, Democratic Party approval was under 22% in some parts of the country. Trump's approval ratings at the time were low, but the Democratic Party's ratings were lower.

That's something Democrats need to worry about and take seriously. Higher approval ratings for Democrats in large states such as California may raise the average approval rating for Democrats in national polls such as this one, but those places where Democratic approval is in the toilet still remain. Democrats will continue to lose elections in those many parts of the country where that's the case until Democrats accept that there's a real problem and find ways to fix it.

This. The fact the other guy is bad does not mean you're a viable alternative. This is something US politicians tend to be rather bad at, loads of energy is directed and not making the electorate vote for the other guy.

That's one of the reasons why a two party system is bad.

McHrozni

[Nova Land]

Originally Posted by Segnosaur

It is true that there are states that the Democrats have pretty much no chance at winning. (Mainly rural states in the deep south and mid-west).

I disagree that Democrats have little or no chance of winning these states. The problem I see Democrats having is that they've largely written a lot of areas off and aren't even trying to win people in those areas over.

Tennessee, where I live, is a good example of that. West Virginia's an even better one. I've seen people on pro-Democratic sites such as Daily Kos arguing that West Virginia is pretty much hopeless and the best they can do if they want to win anything in W.Va. is run candidates who are conservative enough they could virtually pass for Republicans. (For example Jim Justice, the Democratic candidate who won last year's governorship and then changed his party affiliation to Republican soon after.)

Which overlooks the fact that for decades West Virginia consistently elected Democrats to the US senate, and consistently elected a majority-Democratic congressional delegation, and consistently had Democratic control of the state legislature. (The governorship switched parties on a regular basis, but that's another story.) It's only in the last decade that W. Va. has become so Republican. It's been quite a while since I lived in W. Va. but my assumption is that's not so much an acceptance of the current Republican party as a rejection of the current Democratic party.

A large proportion of the electorate no longer bothers to vote in elections. In some cases that may be due to obstacles to voting; but in many cases, I believe it's because they just don't see any compelling reason to put the time and effort into voting when they could be doing laundry or washing their hair instead. Democrats (and Republicans) may talk about making things better for the average person, but in practice the laws which get passed and policies which get enacted favor the people and corporations which are able to make large contributions.

Until Democrats can show lower-income and middle-income people that Democrats if elected really will work for and pass laws benefiting the nation as a whole rather than laws mainly benefiting the wealthy few, the Democrats are going to continue to lose a large number of people who should be their base -- as has already happened in West Virginia, in Kentucky, in Ohio, in Tennessee and many other places.

Bernie Sanders actually excited a lot of the people who had largely written the Democrats off in recent years (or who were young enough never to have felt the excitement); and instead of responding, Yes! We'd love to welcome a you folks back into the tent the response of many in the Democratic circle was If you're not already committed to blindly supporting us then we don't need your vote, so get lost.

Until Democrats realize that the way one wins people into one's tent is by making them feel welcome (rather than unwelcome) and making them feel you'll actually implement policies which will help them and their families if you're elected (rather than spouting nice-sounding rhetoric and then consistently doing little or nothing), Democrats are going to continue losing. A 7% increase in Republican unfavorability in the nation as a whole is not going to change that any time soon.

Quote:

But there are many battleground states where either the state swings back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, or is Republican but with a relatively slim margin of victory. If its true that the Republicans are loosing support (and it actually is a long term trend, not some minor blip), then the swing states may turn solidly democrat, and the marginal Republican states may even become more competitive (even swinging towards the Democrats on occasion). In that situation, the Democrats would have a stranglehold on power even if they fail to win places like Utah and Alabama.

What would a 7% shift mean on a state-by-state basis in the last presidential election?
- Places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan would never have gone republican
- Texas and Arizona would now become battleground states
- Places like Colorado and Virginia (won by less than 10% in the last presidential election) would become completely out of reach of the republicans

Good luck winning an election under those circumstances.

A 7% shift in the states you list might indeed have a significant effect. But the poll cited in the OP doesn't indicate such a shift occurred in any of those states. It's a national poll of 1,000 people. It says that nationwide 7% now view the GOP more unfavorably than they did. It says nothing about what the changes in each individual state were -- but I strongly suspect the GOP unfavorability has risen significantly in California, New York, Massachusetts, and other populous left-leaning areas, and that that's a considerable factor in the 7% figure.

If GOP unfavorability has gone up more than 7% in those areas, then it will have gone up less than 7% in other areas. How much it went up, we don't know. We need state polls, not a national poll, to tell us that; and the linked article does not provide state polls.

[ahhell]

How much of the change is Trump supporters who are pissed at the GOP for being insufficiently devoted to the Trump and how much is old guard republicans disgusted with Trump and his partisans?

[crescent]

Originally Posted by ahhell

How much of the change is Trump supporters who are pissed at the GOP for being insufficiently devoted to the Trump and how much is old guard republicans disgusted with Trump and his partisans?

In similar polls I've seen, they sometimes also have anecdotal information from individual responses. Many of those people are furious as the GOP for not yet indicting Hillary Clinton, not scrapping the Iran nuclear deal fast enough, not prosecuting Black Lives Matter as a terrorist group, that sort of thing. I don't think this drop in GOP popularity will help the Democrats much at all.

At any rate, as terrible as Republicans are at governing, there is one thing they are extremely good at: winning elections.

[Trebuchet]

Originally Posted by ahhell

How much of the change is Trump supporters who are pissed at the GOP for being insufficiently devoted to the Trump and how much is old guard republicans disgusted with Trump and his partisans?

Originally Posted by crescent

In similar polls I've seen, they sometimes also have anecdotal information from individual responses. Many of those people are furious as the GOP for not yet indicting Hillary Clinton, not scrapping the Iran nuclear deal fast enough, not prosecuting Black Lives Matter as a terrorist group, that sort of thing. I don't think this drop in GOP popularity will help the Democrats much at all.

At any rate, as terrible as Republicans are at governing, there is one thing they are extremely good at: winning elections.

Just what I was thinking. On the plus side, at least some of those disaffected trumpsters may just stay home next time.

[WilliamSeger]

Originally Posted by ahhell

How much of the change is Trump supporters who are pissed at the GOP for being insufficiently devoted to the Trump and how much is old guard republicans disgusted with Trump and his partisans?

I don't know the numbers, but it's definitely both, and they both hurt in two ways: donations and turnout. After working so hard to achieve one-party rule, the GOP is discovering that they don't really have one party.

[WilliamSeger]

Looks like a trend: Trump favorability down to 32%, Congress down to 18%.

http://www.apnorc.org/projects/Pages...ent-Trump.aspx

Originally Posted by AP-NORC

Few Americans believe that President Trump understands their needs and problems, and most would not describe him as honest, level-headed, or a strong leader, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.


Nineteen percent of Americans say President Trump understands the needs and problems of people like them extremely or very well, 17 percent say moderately well, and 64 percent say he understands their needs and problems not very well or not well at all.


Twenty-six percent believe President Trump is a strong leader, 23 percent view him as honest, and 16 percent say he is level-headed. Republicans are most likely to use each of these terms to describe the president.


Presidential approval remains on a downward trend. Thirty-two percent of Americans say they approve of the way President Trump is handling his job and 67 percent disapprove. His approval rating is down from 42 percent in March and 35 percent in June. While 67 percent of Republicans still approve of the job the president is doing, support among Republicans has decreased significantly since March when 80 percent of Republicans expressed approval. Twenty-eight percent of independents and 5 percent of Democrats say they approve of Trump’s handling of his job. Among Democrats, this also represents a decline since March when 11 percent said they approved.


Congressional approval remains even lower. Eighteen percent of Americans say they approve of the way Congress has been handling its job and 81 percent disapprove, including 51 percent who say they strongly disapprove.

[fuelair]

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger

GOP unfavorability up 7 points since June, 14 points since March.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...is-in-freefall

From their lips to Cthulhu's ears - and may the GOP be eaten first and only that they be one with their dastard bastard master in orange!!!!!!!!

[fuelair]

Perhaps Trumpf needs to be in one of those pResidential Treatment Centers!!!

[fuelair]

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger

GOP unfavorability up 7 points since June, 14 points since March. *

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...is-in-freefall

* The Ids of March, no doubt!!!!!

[dudalb]

And one factor is that Trump performance in office has energized the Democratic Party;a great many Democrats who sat this one out because they did not like Hilary very much won't sit out the next one.

[Travis]

Originally Posted by Nova Land

I disagree that Democrats have little or no chance of winning these states. The problem I see Democrats having is that they've largely written a lot of areas off and aren't even trying to win people in those areas over.

Tennessee, where I live, is a good example of that. West Virginia's an even better one. I've seen people on pro-Democratic sites such as Daily Kos arguing that West Virginia is pretty much hopeless and the best they can do if they want to win anything in W.Va. is run candidates who are conservative enough they could virtually pass for Republicans. (For example Jim Justice, the Democratic candidate who won last year's governorship and then changed his party affiliation to Republican soon after.)

Which overlooks the fact that for decades West Virginia consistently elected Democrats to the US senate, and consistently elected a majority-Democratic congressional delegation, and consistently had Democratic control of the state legislature. (The governorship switched parties on a regular basis, but that's another story.) It's only in the last decade that W. Va. has become so Republican. It's been quite a while since I lived in W. Va. but my assumption is that's not so much an acceptance of the current Republican party as a rejection of the current Democratic party.

A large proportion of the electorate no longer bothers to vote in elections. In some cases that may be due to obstacles to voting; but in many cases, I believe it's because they just don't see any compelling reason to put the time and effort into voting when they could be doing laundry or washing their hair instead. Democrats (and Republicans) may talk about making things better for the average person, but in practice the laws which get passed and policies which get enacted favor the people and corporations which are able to make large contributions.

Until Democrats can show lower-income and middle-income people that Democrats if elected really will work for and pass laws benefiting the nation as a whole rather than laws mainly benefiting the wealthy few, the Democrats are going to continue to lose a large number of people who should be their base -- as has already happened in West Virginia, in Kentucky, in Ohio, in Tennessee and many other places.

Bernie Sanders actually excited a lot of the people who had largely written the Democrats off in recent years (or who were young enough never to have felt the excitement); and instead of responding, Yes! We'd love to welcome a you folks back into the tent the response of many in the Democratic circle was If you're not already committed to blindly supporting us then we don't need your vote, so get lost.

Until Democrats realize that the way one wins people into one's tent is by making them feel welcome (rather than unwelcome) and making them feel you'll actually implement policies which will help them and their families if you're elected (rather than spouting nice-sounding rhetoric and then consistently doing little or nothing), Democrats are going to continue losing. A 7% increase in Republican unfavorability in the nation as a whole is not going to change that any time soon.




A 7% shift in the states you list might indeed have a significant effect. But the poll cited in the OP doesn't indicate such a shift occurred in any of those states. It's a national poll of 1,000 people. It says that nationwide 7% now view the GOP more unfavorably than they did. It says nothing about what the changes in each individual state were -- but I strongly suspect the GOP unfavorability has risen significantly in California, New York, Massachusetts, and other populous left-leaning areas, and that that's a considerable factor in the 7% figure.

If GOP unfavorability has gone up more than 7% in those areas, then it will have gone up less than 7% in other areas. How much it went up, we don't know. We need state polls, not a national poll, to tell us that; and the linked article does not provide state polls.

First off as I recall polls in states like Wisconsin showed huge Trump buyers remorse recently.

But secondly why do the Democrats have to be the good guys and embrace more? The GOP's entire platform right now is "vote for us if you want to make libtards suffer even if it also means you suffer!" and seem to have done alright with it. Tennessee is a good example. Voters there don't want to make their own lives better they just want to hurt liberals and perceived liberals. Why can't the Democrats simply point out that other side are literal monsters in states with voters that aren't simply looking to spread misery?

[Nova Land]

Originally Posted by Travis

Why can't the Democrats simply point out that other side are literal monsters in states with voters that aren't simply looking to spread misery?

Because that approach works well on people inclined toward the Republican side -- as we've seen empirically from this past election, where many leaners who were initially repelled by the thought of voting for Trump got on board because they were moved by the pitch: you have to vote for Trump, because otherwise you'll get Hillary Clinton. Their hatred of Clinton (fed for the past 25 years by right-wing talk show hosts and GOP fund-raising pitches) and their hatred of what Clinton might do if elected (appoint judges who would preserve Roe v Wade, for instance) was sufficient to move them to vote for Trump regardless of how bad he might be.

But that approach does not work well on people inclined toward the Democratic side -- as we've also seen empirically from this past election, where dislike for Trump was not sufficient to move leaners to vote for Clinton. You have to vote for Clinton because otherwise you get Trump; you don't have any other choice was not a winning message.

People on the right are more inclined to take action based on their dislikes and fears -- i.e. negative actions, actions which are more designed to stop or obstruct something than to accomplish something. People on the left are more inclined to take action based on their hopes to accomplish things they want to see happen -- i.e. positive actions, actions which are more designed to create programs to address problems. That's why successful Democrats such as FDR come up with programs (such as creating the Social Security system), and successful Republicans such as Ronald Reagan come up with ways to end or at least greatly reduce programs (such as defunding public radio and public television). George H. W. Bush's winning pitch wasn't I'll build roads and bridges or I'll upgrade our education system into the finest possible or I'll make sure the hungry are fed and the homeless are housed; it was No new taxes!

Claiming a Democrat will do horrible things is often enough to get right-leaners to vote Republican. Claiming a Republican will do horrible things is often not enough to get left-leaners to vote Democratic. Left-leaners are more inclined to want to be given reasons to vote for someone in order to get them to vote for someone. They are more in need of being inspired to vote than right-leaners, and too many Clinton supporters (and the Clinton campaign) failed to provide that inspiration to the people whose votes they needed and -- in my opinion -- could have won if they had taken an inspiring approach rather than an un-inspiring one.

What I saw online in places such as Daily Kos was many Clinton supporters doing their best to insult and drive away anyone who wasn't already solidly on board with Clinton. Jill Stein was actively insulted, as was anyone considering voting for her -- an approach which was not likely to win potential Stein voters over to voting for Clinton. Bernie Sanders was actively insulted, as were people who had supported Sanders in the primary and were still feeling more inclined to like Sanders' positions than Clinton's -- again, an approach more likely to convince people to sit the election out than to convince people to reward the people insulting them by doing what the insulters wanted.

It used to be widely understood among Democrats that the way to win elections was for the candidate who won the primary to attempt to woo and win the support of those who had opposed them in the primaries. The Democratic assumption in 2016 seemed to be more along the lines that those who supported the winner of the primary had pwned those who supported the loser of the primary and were therefore owed obeisance. That may nowadays be a workable way to win support from Republicans and those who lean Republican (cf Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio) but it's not a good way to win support from Democrats and those who lean Democratic.

[applecorped]

No worries, Dems in a landslide, what could possibly go wrong?

[applecorped]

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger

Looks like a trend: Trump favorability down to 32%, Congress down to 18%.

http://www.apnorc.org/projects/Pages...ent-Trump.aspx

Oh we finally passed Peak Trump?