The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer is a two-time Emmy award winner, both for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq.
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Advantage, Democrats
December 18, 2008 6:59 AM
The Democratic Party has soared to its widest advantage over the Republicans in trust to handle the nation’s main problems in 26 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, aided both by Barack Obama’s strong ratings and George W. Bush’s weak ones.
Fifty-six percent of Americans pick the Democrats to do a better job coping with the main challenges the nation faces over the next few years – the most in polls since 1982 – vs. 23 percent for the Republicans, their lowest on record by a substantial margin.
Preference for the GOP on this measure has dropped by 9 points just since last spring. Then the Democrats held a 21-point advantage, 53-32 percent (matching their best, in January 1993, just after Bill Clinton’s election). Now it’s grown to 33 points. And these compare to a scant 4-point average Democratic advantage in 88 ABC/Post polls to ask the question since September 1982. Check out the chart.
Partisan differences in these views underscore the Republican Party’s parlous state. While 95 percent of Democrats trust their party more to handle the nation’s main problems, only 67 percent of Republicans trust the GOP more, the fewest on record. Instead 21 percent of Republicans volunteer that they trust neither party or (for a few) both equally, or have no opinion; and 12 percent cross over to pick the Democratic Party.
Trust more to handle main problems
Dem. Rep. Neither/both
Party Party no opin.
All 56% 23 21
Dems 95 2 4
Inds 46 17 37
Reps 12 67 21
Independents, meanwhile, break sharply in the Democrats’ favor: Forty-six percent of independents prefer the Democratic Party, while just 17 percent pick the GOP. (The rest don’t favor either party, which is what makes them independents.)
This rating is informed both by current events and longer-term trends. Most immediately, George W. Bush has just a 30 percent job approval rating, while 76 percent of Americans approve of the way Obama’s handling the presidential transition.
Moreover, Americans overwhelmingly pick the economy as the nation’s main problem – and just 24 percent approve of how Bush is handling it. Fifty-five percent, by contrast, say Obama’s off to a good start on the economy; an additional 27 percent are waiting for him actually to take office before passing judgment. Just 10 percent rate his approach as a bad one, compared with Bush’s 73 percent disapproval on the economy.
The longer-term dynamic has been a flight from Republican allegiance since 2004, in reaction to Bush and the unpopular war in Iraq. On average in 2003, after closing in for a generation, Republicans for the first time matched the Democrats in partisan allegiance. But amid growing disapproval of the war the Democrats regained the advantage a year later and have widened it since. On average in ABC/Post polls this year, 36 percent of Americans have identified themselves as Democrats, 26 percent as Republicans. It’s 37-24 percent in this poll.
That trend was reflected in the election turnout last month: Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 7 points, 39 percent to 32 percent, their largest advantage in any presidential election since 1980.
December 18, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (23)
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Do the people you polled know the Demorcrats in Congress with the majority have been the ones to mess up the country?
Was it an On line Poll?
If so the Democrats are the ones who are participating in.
Posted by: seah | Dec 18, 2008 7:18:33 AM
It's no secret that the bush/cheney crew has destroyed the peoples confidence. Let's all hope that the new administration can clean up this mess and get the USA back on track.
Posted by: pt | Dec 18, 2008 7:34:48 AM
LOL - the Dems have only controlled congress for a couple of years, and that only by the slimmest of majorities.
Posted by: 12_angry_men | Dec 18, 2008 8:24:34 AM
It takes two to tango! The republicans did not do this damage on their own!!! Open your eyes!!
Posted by: zeuser89 | Dec 18, 2008 8:29:54 AM
It wwould be very interesting to poll those exact same people in 6 months. I wonder how many of them understand the legislative agenda in Congress has been completely controlled by Democrats for the past 23 months!
Posted by: Mike_C | Dec 18, 2008 8:50:09 AM
I can fully understand this - I mean look at the credibility of Blago, Spitzer, Jefferson, Dodd, Frank - I guess small minds do conceive small things.
Posted by: jamescbuilder | Dec 18, 2008 9:12:54 AM
Hilarious to read these starry-eyed lefty drive-by media types reading their tea leaves as they mull the fact that they can only muster slightly more than 50% of the vote in leiu of the 'conditions' as propogandized to the general non-internet populace over the last 6 years. With all that negative press you've heaped on Republicans you can only garner slightly more than 50% of the vote? With more and more people tuning out traditional media, you will see democrat numbers tank worse than when they have ever been, even with a complicent main stream media,
Posted by: Alex in DC | Dec 18, 2008 9:17:08 AM
Mike C: Ooooohhhh, 23 months is a REALLY long time, too. Especially when we're talking about problems that are YEARS in the making.
Posted by: 1bluestocking | Dec 18, 2008 9:43:32 AM
seah,
These polls are generally weighted to insure they are not biased in favor of any party.
I believee the polls because they reflect what I get from just talking to even stunch Republicans.
Stop being in denial buddy.
The Republicans are toast. You guys need a new Newt Gingrich and Tom Delay the Hammer to straighten you out.
Posted by: Steve_NJ | Dec 18, 2008 10:19:30 AM
Given the biased press with its constant hate-filled reporting of Bush, I am not surprised. Media does shape public opinion and since the left wing runs most of the media, the polls are a result of their efforts. All you have to do is question the average person, who voted for Obama, about economic facts, the Iraq war or most anything else, and they have no idea why they voted for Obama. They know nothing about him. This was an election stolen by the media.
Posted by: brian | Dec 18, 2008 10:30:07 AM
Within one year of taking over Congress, the Dems had managed to double gas prices, ruin the mortgage market (thanks to people like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Franklin Raines, etc.), ruin the credit industry, and send the stock market straight down the tubes.
Now that they have the communist fraud Barack 0bama as President, things can only get worse economically.
Posted by: Nick in Virginia | Dec 18, 2008 11:27:03 AM
Liberal democrats have been screwing this country up for 50 years. They have shoved entitlement after entitlement down people's throats, which has done nothing more than kill the incentive for people to get an alarm clock and become contributing memebers of society.
They nearly broke our housing market with their robin hood approach to house distriution, and unions have brought auto workers' salaries to unreasonable amounts to watch machines go by. It seems everything the dems have touched turns to crap. Just wait til they get their hands on "fighting terrorism", that will be a joke. The only thing liberals fight is global warming, and they do that by traveling in private jets telling the rest of us to breathe less.
Posted by: keepthechange | Dec 18, 2008 12:18:39 PM
Not really a surprise. But what the DNC has to be worried about is without Bush to attack, people will start looking at the people currently in charge. They’ll realize our economy was going well until Democrats gained a majority. They’ll realize Obama’s incompetence and inability to handle even simple issues. These poll numbers will reverse themselves in a year or two, and the party in power will be held accountable for everything. The political cycle will continue as it always has..
Posted by: howwouldiknow | Dec 18, 2008 12:24:04 PM
If I were a Republican, I wouldn't worry too much about it. They only have to wait 8-12 years for the Democrats in Congress to self destruct in an orgy of hubris and excess.
Posted by: I'm With Stupid | Dec 18, 2008 12:27:03 PM
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people".
HL Mencken, ca. 1925.
"There is a sucker born every minute."
Barack Obama, 2008
Posted by: Bill | Dec 18, 2008 12:49:46 PM
I am so tired of the Republicans getting the "brunt & blame" for EVERYTHING! Who was it that started up NAFTA? Clinton, a DEM! He got a way with murder and did many a cover up! Than, now that most of the jobs are out of the country, because of NAFTA they want our military to come home and to what jobs will they have when they do?
Than, here in Michigan, this governor, who is a DEM has practically done our state in with the highest unemployment in the nation! I may have started out a Dem when I didn't know anybetter. But over the years, they are either MOBSTERS, in bed with OBAMA BIN LADEN, and now of all things they are destroying the country by using their magic words and promoting SOCIALISM!
Posted by: Bunnylou | Dec 19, 2008 4:05:27 PM
I'll believe that Dems are helping the economy when I hear that they are going to pass laws to stop idiots like ACORN from blackmailing banks into giving loans to 'sub-prime' borrowers...and to repeal laws which mandate banks to giving loans to poorer areas in order to expand. This, along with payoffs to Barney and Chris Dodd from FM/FM, caused a lot of the bond-rating problems for mortgage backed securities
Posted by: parkerknoll | Dec 20, 2008 2:27:48 PM
Mike C: Ooooohhhh, 23 months is a REALLY long time, too. Especially when we're talking about problems that are YEARS in the making.
---------------------------------------
1bluestocking,
Your RIGHT!....and now Obama thinks that buffoons who helped create this mess in Clinton Administration can now wave the magic wand and fix it!...Its a heeuva joke!!!!
Posted by: Mike_C | Dec 23, 2008 8:25:33 AM
It's about time. Have you ever seen the budget deficit graphed across presidencies? Every single time a Republican is in office they spend like drunken sailors. When the deficit begins to shrink during a democratic administration a Republican takes office.
Posted by: Eric | Dec 29, 2008 1:49:15 PM
President. (Obama, Democrat)
Speaker of the House(Pelosi, Democrat)
Senate Majority leader(Reid, Democrat)
Who are American's going to blame when something goes wrong, Republicans.
Priceless...
Posted by: Mike Jones | Jan 6, 2009 8:04:06 AM
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