Democrats want compromise more than Republicans. Independents are most likely to up their rating of President Obama in an improving economy. And Americans are less tired of Hillary Clinton than Mitt Romney. This is HuffPollster for Thursday, January 22, 2015.
DEMOCRATS MORE LIKELY TO WANT COMPROMISE – Ned Resnikoff: “Democratic Party supporters show a greater desire for political compromise than Republicans, but only a slight majority of Americans as a whole say political intransigence is the main cause of congressional dysfunction, a new Al Jazeera America/Monmouth University survey suggests. When asked by pollsters who causes more problems in the federal government — ‘elected officials who are not willing to stand up for their principles or elected officials who are not willing to compromise’ — 71 percent of self-identifying Democrats blamed officials who are not willing to compromise, whereas just 40 percent of Republicans agreed. Nearly half of Republican respondents, 49 percent, said politicians cause trouble by not standing up for their principles, compared to 20 percent of Democrats. Overall, the survey found that 54 percent of all Americans think the bigger problem is lack of compromise.” [Al Jazeera America]
OBAMA’S INCREASED RATINGS ARE LARGELY THANKS TO INDEPENDENTS – Philip Bump: “Earlier this month, we looked at the narrow range in which Obama’s approval has hovered since 2009. That’s largely because Republicans strongly oppose the president and Democrats mostly approve — meaning that shifts are a function of independent voters changing their minds. You can see that in this graph, which shows how approval of the economy and of the president have shifted over time….Look at the yellow line. That’s independents. And over the last two Post/ABC polls (since last September), they’ve grown much more approving of the economy and Obama. Notice how much wider the bar is for independents than for Democrats — or, especially, Republicans. That’s why the ‘all voters’ bar isn’t very wide, meaning there’s only been a small uptick in overall approval: Independents make up less of the population. But the movement among that group has clearly been correlated to increased economic satisfaction….[T]he layer of politics that has kept approval of Obama constrained for years also means that the benefits of an improving economy are themselves likely dampened. By now, this is what we’ve come to expect.” [WashPost]
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-AAPOR’s New England chapter to hold a panel on fabrication in overseas polling. [NEAAPOR]
-26 percent of Americans say that God plays a role in determining which team wins a sporting event. [PRRI]
Janie Velencia contributed reporting.
