"Internally Splintered:" Gallup Reiterates Fact that Democrats Are Fond Of Themselves, Republicans More Self-Critical

Gallup analysis confirms a long-running trend of Republicans being more harsh on their own party than Democrats with theirs, and points the blame at "internal strife." If there is any "strife," it exists between the groups represented above, with (from left) Demint, Cruz, and Limbaugh representing the Tea Party/Heritage wing of the party, and Boehner, Peter King, and Karl Rove representing the "GOP Establishment." Photos courtesy of Donkey Hotey.

Twitter lit up once again this afternoon when the Gallup organization released an attention-grabbing headline: Republican Party Favorability Sinks to All-Time Low. And below is just a small sample of reactions to the news.

Republican party less popular than at any point since question was first asked in 1992: http://t.co/nYXgLabiyG
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) October 9, 2013

GOP drop reflects discontent within party, a lose-lose. Either alienating moderates or shutdown isn't rallying tea party as it's supposed to
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) October 9, 2013

I'm not surprised the Republican Party is unpopular. It's almost like they're TRYING to be.
— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) October 9, 2013

for all the pundits who've claimed GOP losing the House was a Pipe Dream, care to weigh following GOP's historically awful polling?
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) October 9, 2013

How bad could it possibly be, you ask? Precedent-setting awful, that's how bad. Barely over one-quarter of Americans have a favorable view of the Grand Ole Party (28%), while roughly two-thirds view it unfavorably (62%). And as Andrew Dugan of the Gallup organization notes, it's the lowest popularity rating for Republicans OR Democrats since they began polling the question twenty-one years ago.

For their part, the Democrats are also near-record setting popularity lows (43/49%). They just have a much higher floor than Republicans.

The Gallup numbers would be a little easier for Republican spinsters to dismiss if it weren't for the fact that similarly poor numbers are popping up all over the place. But Dugan also cites a particular phenomenon in the Gallup press-release that might provide a bit of relief for fretful Republican campaign operatives across the country:

"Self-identified Republicans are more than twice as likely to view their own party unfavorably (27%) as Democrats are to see their own party unfavorably (13%). . . These findings may be consistent with the widely circulated narrative that the Republican Party is internally splintered on how best to handle the budgetary negotiations."

This phenomenon isn't limited to the new Gallup poll, either. Consider the chart below, which documents how consistently Republican voters have offered up less favorable or approving views of their own party than Democrats, at least over the course of the last several months (please keep in mind that only polls with readily retrievable crosstabs could be used in the tabulation):

*denotes survey asked poll respondents whether they approved or disapproved of the Republican or Democratic Party, rather than whether they felt favorably or unfavorably toward the party.

SHUTDOWN 2013: A Close Look At Public Opinion Towards The President, The Parties, Congress, and More

Congress, the President, Democrats, Republicans...EVERYONE was better liked by the public during the 1995 government shutdown. New polling indicates Americans are more short-tempered than they wee 18 years ago.

We've been here before.

At least eighteen times since 1976, according to Wikipedia. In fact, George W. Bush has the praiseworthy distinction of being the only President since Gerald Ford to avoid a government shutdown during his time in office. 

But most of those shutdowns garnered light interest from public opinion pollsters, scant attention from the political press, and were generally far less glamorous than the one that took place between the Republican Congress and Democratic President in the 1990s, and the one happening now.

There's been a wealth of excellent articles written over the last week by TNR's Nate Cohn, Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics, and Harry Enten of The Guardian, regarding the polling differences between the two shutdowns. Enten blew a hole in the mythology surrounding the '95 stalemate, suggesting the 1996 election results were more the consequence of economic fundamentals than the budget showdown. Cohn piggy-backed off this days later, arguing that the GOP's hold on the House of Representatives is unlikely to change in light of events following '95. Trende set out to distinguish the tactics and goals of the '95 battle with today's.

This post intends to dive further into the data points driving these three mens' pieces, with a focus on the comparison of public blame then and now, Presidential and Congressional approval, generic Congressional ballot polling, and more.


THE BLAME GAME, THEN AND NOW

Enten noted in The Guardian the marked difference in the level of blame the public placed on the political parties in '95 and now. Sure, Republicans are again on the receiving end of most of the finger pointing, but not to the extent they once were.

In fact, the Republicans most favorable data point out of shutdown polling to date comes from a week-old Pew Research survey finding American adults would blame Republicans in Congress only slightly more than the Obama Administration in the event of an actual shutdown.

If the federal government shuts down because Republicans and the Obama Administration can't agree on a budget, who do you think would be more to blame? (September 19-22, 2013, MoE +/- 3.7%)

• Republicans  -  39%
• Democrats  -  36%
• Both Equally  -   17%
• Don't know/Other  -  8%

If public opinion data regarding blame for the current shutdown stopped at the Pew Research poll, well, then the Republicans wouldn't seem to be freaking out so much right now, would they? But a few more pollsters have weighed in since Pew, and they find larger pluralities of Americans holding Republicans responsible for the gridlock:

The Global Strategy Group Poll listed Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats as separate question responses, unlike the other three pollsters who grouped the President with Congressional Democrats into one response.

In the 6 surveys that specifically asked about blame for a potential shutdown since the start of September, 43% on average have blamed Republicans, 36% have blamed Democrats.

But that's still good news for the GOP, at least from a purely comparative standpoint.

In the weeks leading up to the 1995 government shutdown, (which occurred initially on November 14, 1995), well over two-thirds of Americans (39%) blamed the newly-elected Republican Congress for the deadlock, while just a quarter blamed President Clinton and the Democrats (25%); making the Republican's average "margin of blame" 7 points smaller in 2013 than in 1995.

So where should you expect public sentiment to go now that the shutdown is underway? It's hard to say. Immediate media reaction has been overwhelmingly negative for Republicans. Though as Day 2 came to a close, right-wing media, powered by Fox News and The Drudge Report, had been moderately successful at shifting focus to the White House's refusal to sign House-passed appropriations bills that would fund the National Institute of Health, Veterans Affairs, and national parks.

Though if 1995 is any guide (and it hasn't been, at least with regards to public blame for the shutdown), things are about to get a little worse for the GOP. See the table below of every survey to ask Americans who they blamed for the government shutdowns in 1995-96: