A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll was released yesterday with a lot of fairly predictable numbers. Bush’s support is still remarkably low, if given a chance Bush would lose to an unnamed Dem 55% to 40%, most Americans believe Bush does not have “the personality and leadership qualities a president should have,” the president disagrees with most Americans “on the issues that matter most,” yada yada yada.
There was, however, one thing that stood out about which party people trust more on the issues.
On separate issues, a majority of those questioned felt the Democrats could do a better job than Republicans at handling health care (59 percent to 30 percent), Social Security (56 percent to 33 percent), gasoline prices (51 percent to 31 percent) and the economy (50 percent to 38 percent).
Forty-six percent also believed Democrats could do better at handling Iraq, while 40 percent said the GOP would do better.
Support for the Dems on domestic policy issues is expected — the party is nearly always ahead on these questions — but I was a little surprised to see the Dems ahead on handling Iraq.
Two years ago, on the same question, Republicans enjoyed a 24-point edge (53% to 29%). Now a plurality believes Dems would deal with the war better. The interesting part is that Dems don’t really have a policy on Iraq.
I mention this because there seems to be an ongoing debate over whether Dems need to offer a clear, positive agenda in order to generate public support. To a limited extent, this poll result makes a point I’ve believed for a long time — if the public rejects how the Republicans are handling an issue, they’ll begin to support the Dems, whether they know how the Dems will deal with the issue or not.
Indeed, it’s reached a point in which even Frank Luntz, whose polling work helped shape the Contract with America a decade ago, now believes that Republicans genuinely need to worry about the GOP losing control of Congress.
If you’re a Republican and already worried about your party’s prospects in 2006, pollster Frank Luntz, a Republican himself, has a message for you: It’s worse than you think.
Luntz, who worked with Republicans in 1994 to draft the Contract With America and win a realigning election, said political conditions are as bad or worse now — only this time for Republicans, not Democrats. Republicans won 52 House seats in 1994 and have held the House since then. In 2006, he said, Republican control of the House — currently 232 seats to 203 seats — is “in jeopardy.” Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to take over.
“Republicans have a whole year to get their act together,” Luntz said, though they’ve shown no signs of doing so. “As angry and p—–off as we were about politics [in 1994], I think it’s worse today,” according to Luntz, who spoke yesterday at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. […]
In focus groups, Luntz measures the desire for change by asking voters if they are “basically satisfied” or think the country is on the wrong track, causing them to prefer “a different approach.” Luntz said more voters today say wrong track than he’s seen “in a long time.” … Luntz said the anger of voters is “palpable, emotional, intense.”
And that’s before anyone at the White House is indicted.