Some Good News For Shutdown-Weary Republicans

Silver linings for the GOP

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Speaker John Boehner in the basement of the Capitol on October 12, 2013 in Washington, DC.

The GOP has been taking a hit in the court of public opinion over the ongoing government shutdown and looming debt crisis, but a new poll shows it’s not all bad for Republicans.

The Pew survey out Tuesday echoes others in find more Americans blame Republicans for the Washington gridlock (47 percent) than blamed President Barack Obama (36 percent). But there’s some silver linings for Republicans, too.

Here are four pieces of good news for the GOP in Pew’s latest poll.

  • On the question of who is best able to handle the economy, more say the GOP (44%) than the Democrats (37%), with Independents even more strongly in favor of the GOP (46%) over Democrats (30%).
  • Roughly an equal number of respondents say the GOP (42%) is best equipped to run the federal government as say the Democrats are (39%). That’s a decisive shift from 2012 when the Democratic Party held a nine-point lead on the question.
  • Barack Obama receives the lowest favorability rating of his presidency, 47%.
  • Though a near record high of 58% Americans hold an unfavorable view of the GOP, that number—even after all the partisan battles of recent months—is unchanged from July. The GOP’s favorability ratings are slightly up at 38% from a low of 33% in July.