The Republican Party is really unpopular. But I wonder what it going to happen to their brand over the course of this year. Considering that the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce have agreed on an immigration reform deal, what will happen if Marco Rubio simply walks away from a deal? Or, what if the Senate passes a bill and the House can’t follow suit? Or, what if Boehner feels compelled to pass a bill that the majority of his caucus opposes?
What if the Senate agrees on a universal background check on guns and the House won’t go along with it? Or, what if the Senate Republicans won’t give the president the vote he insisted on in the State of the Union? What if the House Republicans refuse to allow a vote? What if Boehner feels compelled to pass a bill that the majority of his caucus opposes?
We can ask these same questions about fixing the sequester. If the Republicans continue to refuse to offer any revenues through tax reform and insist on cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security (a position opposed by 77% of the people and supported by only 17%) how much blame will they get for that?
These are not even the most dangerous issues for the Republicans. Fooling around with the debt ceiling again or causing a government shutdown are both still real possibilities this year.
We keep seeing analysis written through the prism of the red/blue divide, where Republicans have more to fear from primary challengers than from Democrats. But their positions on guns and immigration and the budget are not polling well at all. Obviously, their position on gay rights is also polling poorly. In fact, their positions are weak enough with independents and moderates that Republican lawmakers should not assume that they will get the same percentage of those votes in 2014 that they got in 2012.
They are in trouble on individual issues, taking positions in some cases that are supported by less than one in ten voters. Overall, on the issues likely to be at the forefront of political discussion this year, they are fairly consistently taking positions that are supported by no more than a third of the voters. But they also have to worry about the meta-narrative they are creating. The new Quinnipiac poll shows the GOP’s favorability at 28%-52% and their congressional approval rating at 19%-71%. That’s a pretty bad place to start if you are planning another year of total obstruction and dysfunction. They don’t have any good will to work with. Their arguments are unpopular on the merits, so it’s not possible to improve things by getting their message out.
The leaders are probably looking at how much of a boost New Jersey Governor Chris Christie got out of cooperating with the president on Sandy relief and wondering whether they’d get the same kind of bounce if they worked out some deals with the administration. But their rank and file doesn’t look like they are in any mood to permit that.
