A new survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps reveals voters’ growing anger with Washington. This survey fielded at a unique time – just as Standard and Poor’s announced its credit rating downgrade. As a result, these results capture the immediate reactions of American voters – and their initial backlash against Congressional Republicans in particular and Washington in general.
These results capture the immediate reactions of American voters: their initial backlash against Washington in general and against Congressional Republicans in particular.[1]ย The picture is bleak.ย Three-quarters of voters now believe the country is on the wrong track, up 14 points since June; a mere 16 percent say we are on the right track, the lowest in our tracking since the 2008 financial crisis. ย This is clearly driven by frustration with, and antipathy toward, the way things work (or don’t) in Washington. The debt ceiling debate was a kind of mutually assured destruction for the two parties; both parties in Congress, and leaders from each side, have suffered the consequences.ย The two parties get the largest downgrade – though the Republicans in the House saw the biggest rise in disapproval and their Speaker, the largest rise in negative sentiment.
[1]ย This memo is based on a national survey of 1480 likely 2012 voters (1000 weighted) August 6-10, 2011 conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps and Women’s Voices, Women Vote: Unless otherwise noted, margin of error= +/- 2.5 percentage points at 95 percent confidence.
