57% of Likely Voters Describe Democratic Congressional Agenda As Extreme
Wednesday, August 11, 2010 Email to a Friend ShareThis.Advertisement
Most U.S. voters believe the Democratic congressional agenda is extreme, while a plurality describe the Republican agenda as mainstream.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters think the agenda of Democrats in Congress is extreme. Thirty-four percent (34%) say it is more accurate to describe the Democratic agenda as mainstream.
Voters are more narrowly divided when it comes to the agenda of congressional Republicans. Forty-five percent (45%) of voters view the GOP agenda as mainstream, but nearly as many (40%) say it’s more accurate to call it extreme. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.
The Political Class, however, has dramatically different views of the agendas of the two parties from what Mainstream voters think. Ninety-one percent (91%) of the Political Class say the Democratic agenda in Congress is in the mainstream, but 70% of Mainstream voters see that agenda as extreme.
While 53% of Mainstream voters see the Republican congressional agenda as in the mainstream, 81% of Political Class voters regard it as extreme.
Data released earlier showed that 67% of the Political Class believes the country is heading in the right direction. Among Mainstream voters, 84% say the nation has gotten off on the wrong track.
As most members of Congress head home to make the case for their reelection, only 16% of voters rate the overall performance of Congress as good or excellent. Most voters (56%) still give Congress poor marks for how it’s doing its job.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters U.S. Voters was conducted on August 9-10, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
These new findings are perhaps not surprising, given voter unhappiness over the national health care bill, the bailouts of the auto and financial industries and the continuing sluggishness of the economy despite last year’s $787-billion economic stimulus plan. These initiatives and others like them have helped drive the federal deficit to projected record levels for years to come.
Voters overwhelmingly believe that it’s important to cut the federal deficit in half, but few think that’s likely to happen.
Now, for the first time since President Obama took office, voters see his policies as equally to blame with those of President George W. Bush for the country’s current economic problems.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of male voters regard the Democratic congressional agenda as extreme, as do a plurality (48%) of women. While 51% of men see the GOP agenda as mainstream, women are evenly divided over whether that agenda is mainstream or extreme.
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 73% say the agenda of Democrats in Congress is extreme. By a 47% to 38%, these voters regard the Republican agenda as mainstream.
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of liberals view the Democratic agenda as mainstream. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of conservatives say the same of the GOP agenda. Moderates by a narrow margin tend to view the agendas of both parties as more extreme than mainstream.
Yet 72% of Republican voters continue to believe that GOP members of Congress have lost touch with the party base throughout the nation over the past several years. By contrast, 61% of Democratic voters think their representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Democratic values over the past several years.
Most voters continue to believe it would be better for the country if the majority of Congress is thrown out this November.
Most also believe it is at least somewhat likely that Republicans will win control of both houses of Congress in the upcoming elections, and nearly half say there will a noticeable change in the lives of Americans if this happens.
There’s been speculation that the current Democratic-controlled Congress may try to enact more major legislation in a lame duck session after Election Day if Republicans win control of the House or Senate or both. Just 29% want Congress to consider major legislation in this period if the GOP returns to power.
Republicans continue to lead Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot and are trusted more by voters on most key issues. |
