Americans view the GOP less favorably now than they did at the beginning of the year, when Republicans took control of both houses of Congress.
A new Pew poll finds that favorability among Americans for Republicans is at 32 percent – which is 9 percentage points less than in January – while 60 percent of the survey-takers said they viewed the GOP unfavorably now. Perceptions of Democrats, meanwhile, have remained split.
When favorability ratings were broken out by party of the poll participant, Pew found that the percentage of Republicans who had positive views of the GOP dropped by 20 point percentage points since January – from 86 percent to 66 percent – while positive perceptions of the Democratic Party among Democrats have hovered in the mid-80s.
Not much has shifted in regards to which party Americans thought could better manage the federal government, with the 2 percentage point advantage Democrats had on the GOP in October 2014 shrinking to 1 percentage point now.
The Democratic Party gained traction on specific issues, such as abortion, foreign policy, taxes, education, and the economy, where they were viewed more favorably now than they were in February.
For the report, Pew surveyed 2,002 adults nationwide via telephone
between July 14-20, 2015, with a margin of error of 2.5 percent among
the total sample.
