75% of GOP Voters Still Think Their Legislators Out of Touch
Friday, January 08, 2010
President Obama and congressional Democrats may be suffering these days in the polls, but Republican voters are still unhappy with the job their legislators are doing in Washington, D.C.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Republicans voters still believe Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters throughout the nation over the past several years. Just 21% of GOP voters think their legislators have done a good job representing party values.
Fifty-four percent (54%) of GOP voters say the average Republican congressman is more liberal than they are, while 23% say their views are about the same. Just 20% believe the average GOP representative in Congress is more conservative than the average Republican voter.
These results are little changed from surveys in April. August.and October of last year.
The survey also shows that Democrats don?t understand how the GOP base sees things. A solid plurality of Democrats (42%) believes that the average Republican in Congress is more conservative than the average GOP voter.
Most unaffiliated voters believe that the average Republican in Congress is more liberal than the average Republican voter.
Among all voters, 27% say the average Republican in Congress is more conservative than the average GOP voter. Thirty-eight percent (38%) believe the average GOP congressman is more liberal than the typical Republican voter. Twenty-five percent (25%) say the two are about the same.
Fifty-three percent (53%) of all voters say it is more important for the Republican Party to stand for what it believes in than to work with President Obama. Forty-two percent (42%) think it is more important for the party to work with the Democratic president.
Republican voters overwhelmingly think their party should stand for what it believes in. Most unaffiliated voters share that view. However, 74% of Democrats think it?s more important for the Republicans in Congress to work with President Obama.
Interestingly, these findings come as a new Hotline/National Journal survey of GOP insiders finds that most are sour on Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. But a Rasmussen Reports survey in mid-November found that 59% of Republicans say Palin shares the values of most GOP voters throughout the nation.
The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that members of the Political Class tend to believe that Republicans in Congress are more conservative than Republican voters. Most of those with populist of Mainstream views say the average Republican in Congress is more liberal than the average Republican voter (see more on the Political Class-Mainstream divide).
But in October, Palin trailed handily in face-to-face march-ups with her two likeliest challengers for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. However, this survey was taken prior to the killing of four police officers by a criminal pardoned by Huckabee when he was governor of Arkansas and before the media blitz that accompanied the release of Palin?s book, ?Going Rogue,? in November.
Sixty percent (60%) of voters nationwide say it?s at least somewhat likely that the next president will be a Republican, but it?s important to note that the question did not specify whether that election would take place in 2012 or 2016.
All voters feel more strongly than ever that Congress is performing poorly and that most of its members are in it for themselves.
Only 32% of voters are even somewhat confident that their representatives in Congress, regardless of party, are actually representing their best interests.
In December, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats fell to the lowest level recorded in more than seven years of monthly tracking by Rasmussen Reports. The number of Republicans inched up by a point in December to 34.0%. That?s the highest total for Republicans since December 2007, just before the 2008 presidential campaign season began.
When Obama was inaugurated last January, Democrats had a seven-point lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot. Republicans now have a five-point advantage. That change has been brought about partly by the declining number of Democrats and partly by the fact that unaffiliated voters are now more supportive of the GOP.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2010/75_of_gop_voters_still_think_their_legislators_out_of_touch
