GOP Voters think their party too liberal.

[SirNitram]

Link

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republican voters say their party’s representatives in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters nationwide over the past several years. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 18% of GOP voters believe their elected officials have done a good job representing the base.

Most Republican voters (55%) say that the average Republican in Congress is more liberal than the average Republican voter. Twenty-four percent (24%) say the average Republican in Congress holds views about the same as the average Republican voter while just 17% think the Congressional Republicans are more conservative than GOP voters.

Republican voters overwhelmingly believe it is more important for the party to stand for what it believes in rather than trying to work with President Barack Obama. Eighty-four percent (84%) of Republicans hold that view while just 14% favor more co-operation with the President.

As for voters not affiliated with either major party, 58% say the GOP should stand for what it believes in while 33% would like to see more cooperation with the President. Seventy-one percent (71%) of unaffiliated voters believe the Republicans in Congress have lost touch with their base and a plurality of unaffiliateds (41%) believe that the average Republican in Congress is more liberal than the average Republican voters.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Not surprisingly, Democrats have a fundamentally different view.

Those in President Obama’s party overwhelmingly want the GOP to work more closely with the President. And they have a wildly different perception of the relationship between Republicans members of Congress and GOP voters. While Republicans and unaffiliated voters tend to see Republicans in Congress as more liberal than Republican voters, a plurality of Democrats (35%) hold the opposite view and believe the average Republican in Congress is more conservative than GOP voters. Nearly as many Democrats (33%) say that ideologically, Republicans voters and their Representatives share common ground. Just 18% of Democrats believe than the GOP representatives in Congress are more liberal than GOP voters.

Overall, among all voters, 51% believe it is more important for the Republican Party to stand for what it believes in than for the GOP to work with President Obama. Forty-two percent (42%) disagree.

In late April, voters were basically tied on this question.

Just 24% of all voters nationwide think Democrats should pass a health care reform bill that is opposed by all Republicans in Congress. Fifty-eight percent (58%) say Democrats should change the bill to win support from "a reasonable number of Republicans."

Thirty-seven percent (37%) of all voters say the average Republican member of Congress is more liberal than the average GOP voter. Twenty-six percent (26%) believe the average GOP congressman is more conservative, and 28% say the two are about the same.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of all voters believe Washington politics is likely to become more partisan over the coming year. Fifty-one percent (51%) believe that Obama is governing as a partisan Democrat.

This summer brought a significant shift in voter preferences in the Generic Congressional Ballot. Republican congressional candidates have now held a modest lead over Democrats for nine straight weeks, after trailing for several years. It is important to note, however, that the recent shift is not just because Republicans have been gaining support but also because Democrats have lost support.

For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. Overall, Republicans lead Democrats in terms of voter trust on eight out of 10 key issues for the second consecutive month, and the two are tied on one issue.

Those who say economic and fiscal issues are their biggest concerns make up the majority of Republican voters, and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, runs best among those voters if the 2012 GOP Presidential Primary in their state was held today.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is second to Romney as the presidential candidate Republican voters say they’ll vote for in 2012 state GOP primaries, but she’s also one of two candidates they least hope wins the party’s nomination.

In May, 37% of GOP voters said their party had no leader, but that was an improvement over March when 68% felt that way. In the more recent survey, Arizona Senator John McCain was seen as the party’s leader by 18% of Republican voters, followed by national party chairman Michael Steele at 14% and Palin with 10% support.

Only 29% of all voters are confident that Congress knows what it’s doing with regards to the economy. Fifty-seven percent (57%) say they would vote to replace the entire Congress and start all over again.

You rile up and mainstream extremists, and who knows? You might find your own extremism doesn't satisfy.

[Serafina]

What the heck?

The GOP would be a far-right wing party in German, or at least major parts of it would be. Adn people are complaining that they are TOO LIBERAL?

Seriously, those people must have lost all connections to reality.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Isn't Rasmussen famous for always finding results significantly more conservative than the rest of the major polling groups, though? This might not be as widespread as the numbers indicate.

[Narkis]

I wonder. Just what else should the GOP do to convince their base their sufficiently conservative? And how well would that sit with the middle that usually decide the elections?

[Pint0 Xtreme]

Perhaps this is a symptom of the alienation of the GOP over the past several years. There are definitely less Republicans today than they were four years ago. With the shrinking of the party, it's not inconceivable to think that the extreme right will start to proportionally make up more of its constituency. Regardless, those numbers are still frightening considering how the GOP is in no way, shape or form a fringe American demographic.

[Darth Wong]

What the heck?

The GOP would be a far-right wing party in German, or at least major parts of it would be. Adn people are complaining that they are TOO LIBERAL?

Seriously, those people must have lost all connections to reality.

A lot of Republicans think the party should take the direction of Ron Paul. Complete kooks. Others think it should take the direction of Pat Robertson. Also complete kooks.

[erik_t]

Wake me up when a trustworthy poll finds these results.

[Patrick Degan]

I wonder. Just what else should the GOP do to convince their base their sufficiently conservative?

Eventually stage a full-out Bund meeting...?

[Darth Wong]

I wonder. Just what else should the GOP do to convince their base their sufficiently conservative?

Eventually stage a full-out Bund meeting...?

In all seriousness? Republican politics are not really dictated by what they want. As per my previous post, I don't think they know what they want, and I think that if they tried to hammer it out they would discover irreconcilable differences within their ranks. That's why it is easier for them to define themselves by what they hate.

In other words, they're already pursuing the only strategy which will reliably endear them to their base: hatred of the Democrats and anything considered "liberal".

[Glocksman]

What the heck?

The GOP would be a far-right wing party in German, or at least major parts of it would be. Adn people are complaining that they are TOO LIBERAL?

Seriously, those people must have lost all connections to reality.

A lot of Republicans think the party should take the direction of Ron Paul. Complete kooks. Others think it should take the direction of Pat Robertson. Also complete kooks.

As an ex-Republican, I'd venture that a lot of them are of the 'conservatism didn't fail because Bush wasn't conservative' persuasion.

There's a degree of truth to that if you're a paleocon who believes in balanced budgets even if taxes have to be raised, but the paleocons were largely silent when Bush rammed through his deficit exploding tax cuts.

My personal POV about those who claim Bush wasn't really conservative is to ask what they did to oppose him.
If the answer is 'nothing', then they need to shut the fuck up as they didn't have the courage of their convictions to speak out when it could have effected the course of events.

It's amazing how today many Republicans claim that Bush wasn't really conservative,

[Darth Wong]

That's the same problem: when confronted with a person who says that conservatism never failed because it was never really tried, I ask them to give me a proper definition of conservatism. As a general rule, they cannot do it. Instead, they will only rant about various aspects of "liberalism" that they hate, which goes back to my previous point: conservatives don't really know what they want. They only know what they hate.

That's one of the reasons they can never be happy: they hate the government but they also hate threats to national security, crime, and other problems which can only be dealt with by the government, they hate hate budget deficits but they also hate paying taxes, they hate secularism almost as much as they hate the world's truly theocratic nations, they hate sexual promiscuity and deviance but they also hate people telling them how to live their lives, they hate red tape but they're also furious at regulatory lapses, etc.

At the end of the day, the root problem is that you can't really build a plan by only deciding what you don't want.

[Lonestar]

T

At the end of the day, the root problem is that you can't really build a plan by only deciding what you don't want.

Obviously you've never seen how a re-compete for a DoD contract goes.

[CmdrWilkens]

Wake me up when a trustworthy poll finds these results.

Rasmussen may lean conservative (to the average of between 1 and 3 points on the national scale) but that doesn't mean their data is untrustworthy. Rather it means their data LIKELY has a skew to the right which is both noticeable and consistent (and thus can be corrected for). I'd point out that 538.com ranked them as the third most reliable pollsters after accounting for "lean".

I won't go into Silver's methodology but the simple point is that if the average pollster misses the results of an election by 2 points then Rasmussen would only miss by 1.2 points. In other words they are MUCH better than average and in fact only SurveyUSA and Selzer missed by less on average than they did.

[Skylon]

This isn't that surprising. The likes Hannity and Limbaugh don't call themselves Republicans, but "Conservatives". Any time a Republican attempts to talk some modicum of sense they get strung up and bashed by these people. They proclaim every time a Republican loses an election it's because they don't "follow the core values of conservatism!" In all honesty, if they could they'd rename the party.

[Duckie]

Wake me up when a trustworthy poll finds these results.

Rasmussen may lean conservative (to the average of between 1 and 3 points on the national scale) but that doesn't mean their data is untrustworthy. Rather it means their data LIKELY has a skew to the right which is both noticeable and consistent (and thus can be corrected for). I'd point out that 538.com ranked them as the third most reliable pollsters after accounting for "lean".

I won't go into Silver's methodology but the simple point is that if the average pollster misses the results of an election by 2 points then Rasmussen would only miss by 1.2 points. In other words they are MUCH better than average and in fact only SurveyUSA and Selzer missed by less on average than they did.

Recently there have been pretty huge problems with Rasmussen's questions (Asking people things like "Would you agree or disagree with the following statements: Raising taxes would be a bad idea, because it's better to keep money in the taxpayer's hands rather than give it to government bureaucrats to spend") and their results have been 10 percent out of line consistently with every other polling firm on political issues, and about 5% out of line on economic/country direction polling.

Incidentally the whole point of Silver's methodology of poller ranking is that accuracy of pollsters can change, so he alters the rankings over time- thus why it's on Version 3. He's not an oracle, polling firms can become better or worse. Also, you're making the grave sin of saying "Rasmussen got the final result close, so they must be always close" without looking at their 2008 polls, which were hideously inaccurate especially during the Palin Bounce.

Further, if Rasmussen leans right, we can't trust this polls without other polls to check against, so contact me too when a worthwhile polling firm gives a but lesser few similar bresults.

[CmdrWilkens]

Rasmussen may lean conservative (to the average of between 1 and 3 points on the national scale) but that doesn't mean their data is untrustworthy. Rather it means their data LIKELY has a skew to the right which is both noticeable and consistent (and thus can be corrected for). I'd point out that 538.com ranked them as the third most reliable pollsters after accounting for "lean".

I won't go into Silver's methodology but the simple point is that if the average pollster misses the results of an election by 2 points then Rasmussen would only miss by 1.2 points. In other words they are MUCH better than average and in fact only SurveyUSA and Selzer missed by less on average than they did.

Recently there have been pretty huge problems with Rasmussen's questions (Asking people things like "Would you agree or disagree with the following statements: Raising taxes would be a bad idea, because it's better to keep money in the taxpayer's hands rather than give it to government bureaucrats to spend") and their results have been 10 percent out of line consistently with every other polling firm on political issues, and about 5% out of line on economic/country direction polling.

Incidentally the whole point of Silver's methodology of poller ranking is that accuracy of pollsters can change, so he alters the rankings over time- thus why it's on Version 3. He's not an oracle, polling firms can become better or worse. Also, you're making the grave sin of saying "Rasmussen got the final result close, so they must be always close" without looking at their 2008 polls, which were hideously inaccurate especially during the Palin Bounce.

Further, if Rasmussen leans right, we can't trust this polls without other polls to check against, so contact me too when a worthwhile polling firm gives a but lesser few similar bresults.

That's a nice strawman. My position is reflective of the fact that Rasmussen has generally speaking been accurate and in fact have statistically been one of the more accurate pollsters out there. In turn this means dismissing their results out of hand is stupid. I have never nor am I maintaining now that they are generally accruate and therefore must be accurate in this case. Rather my point is that a person looking to understand what is going on looks at the poll results, looks at the components and interprets from that. They don't, as erik_t did, dismiss the results out of hand because they don't like the pollster.