The Midterms Mollified the Tea Party

  • Share
  • Read Later

I think that’s the gist of this new survey from Pew, which finds that anger toward Washington has subsided considerably among Republicans since last September. The reason doesn’t appear to be so much that desirable policies have been enacted, but rather that voters opposed to ideological compromise are getting the stalemates they asked for (click to enlarge):

The data also lend credence to the idea that conservative Republican freshmen, if they’re listening to those who swept them into office, have an interest in holding their ground in budget skirmishes. Of course, as yesterday’s Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggested*, that doesn’t mean too many people are actually in favor of cuts to the most sacrosanct and fiscally problematic programs:

*This kind of polling should be regarded with some skepticism as the public has a distorted view of the budget; “K through 12 education” and Medicaid (not pictured) are a large part of federal aid to states.