House leaders’ mythical mandate has hurt Americans and the economy

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's first measure of the 2012 congressional elections shows Democrats leading Republicans, 51% to 44%, in registered voters' preferences for which party's candidate they would support in their district "if the elections for Congress were being held today."


The poll was conducted Aug. 4-7, after Standard & Poor's downgrading of the U.S. government's credit rating last week but prior to this week's volatility in the stock market, including the 635-point stock market drop on Monday, Aug. 8.


The seven-percentage-point edge for Democratic congressional candidates, nationally, contrasts with ties or Republican leads in most Gallup polls leading up to the 2010 midterm elections. However, the Democratic advantage is not as large as those they enjoyed in the 2006 and 2008 congressional election cycles -- each of which produced a Democratic majority in Congress. The Democrats averaged a 10-point lead over Republicans among registered voters in the year prior to the 2008 elections and an 11-point advantage leading up to the 2006 elections, with individual polls showing them ahead by as much as 23 points.


That 41 percent, in the polling world, is an amazing figure. Throughout the past two decades, in good times and bad, Americans have always liked their own member of Congress despite abysmal ratings for Congress in general,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. “Now anti-incumbent sentiment is so strong that most Americans are no longer willing to give their own representative the benefit of the doubt. If that holds up, it could be an early warning of an electorate that is angrier than any time in living memory.”


Indeed. Republicans rode a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment to win control of the House in last year’s election and claimed a mandate. Carrying the Tea Party’s extremist agenda, they said voters put them in office to slash government and taxes. But they misunderstood what people wanted.


As we have noted before, the message voters sent in the last election is that, first and foremost, they want Washington to work. They haven’t seen that happen with Republicans’ obstinate demands that have caused gridlock in Congress. In the debt-ceiling negotiations, Republican leaders in Congress repeatedly refused to compromise and balked at long-term solutions that would include raising revenue.


The way the House Republicans conducted themselves during the debt-ceiling negotiations obviously played a major role in the poor poll numbers. The CNN/ORC poll says the number of people who have a favorable view of the Republican Party has dropped by 8 percentage points in the past month, and now just 33 percent of people see the GOP favorably. Only 31 percent of the people see the Tea Party favorably, down 6 percentage points from last month. In comparison, the Democratic Party’s favorable rating went up 2 percentage points to 47 percent.


Republicans could be in for more trouble. The CNN/ORC poll shows that people want the new 12-member debt-reduction committee to raise revenue and make cuts. The poll said 62 percent of the people want to see the committee recommend raising taxes on the rich and major corporations. But don’t expect Republicans to follow suit: All six Republicans appointed to the committee have signed a no-new-taxes pledge, and the party has made tax cuts for the rich and major corporations sacrosanct.


As the nation saw in the debt-ceiling debate, Republican demands have only hurt the nation. Republicans have claimed a populist mantle, but that’s clearly not true. They should start listening to real people, not just the Tea Party.