Why It’s Hard To Predict Who Would Get Blamed For A DHS Shutdown

On Friday afternoon, House Republicans said no to a funding bill that would have kept the Department of Homeland Security in business for another three weeks. If DHS suffers a shutdown at midnight, does that mean Americans will blame Republicans?

Initial polling suggests they are a more likely target for public ire than President Barack Obama, whose recent immigration actions they are trying to spike. But the relatively low public profile of the controversy so far makes any such projections iffy at best.

Last week, CNN published a poll showing that 53 percent of Americans were ready to hold congressional Republicans responsible “if the Department of Homeland Security shuts down because a new spending bill has not been enacted.” Only 30 percent said they would hold the president to blame. Thirteen percent volunteered that they would hold both sides responsible, and 4 percent blamed neither or had no opinion.

Equally important: People are not good at predicting their future attitudes. Former CBS polling director Kathy Frankovic has frequently pointed to surveys conducted during the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Polls conducted before the House vote on impeachment found “a sizable majority” who said they would want Clinton to resign if he were impeached, according to Frankovic. A few weeks later, after the House had voted to impeach the president, “only about a third supported resignation.”

In other words, if the Department of Homeland Security is shut down, the reaction may not be what the early polls predict.

The Huffington Post