Support for congressional GOP slipping

WASHINGTON— Republicans have had a tough month on Capitol Hill, and their poll numbers show it.

Sixty-two percent of voters disapprove of GOP lawmakers in Congress, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll, more than double the 27 percent who said they approve.

That’s a 10-point swing from February, when 57 percent of voters disapproved and 32 percent approved.

The biggest drop in support came from the GOP’s electoral base: Fifty-seven percent of Republican voters now approve of their congressional lawmakers, a 12-point drop from February.

The damage was most glaring with self-identified “soft Republicans.” In this group, a plurality of voters—43 percent—now disapprove of congressional Republicans, compared with 40 percent who approve.

The drop in support came during the week that the American Health Care Act, the Republican Party’s health care bill, failed to pass in the House, a stunning setback for GOP lawmakers that laid bare their internal divisions between moderate and conservative factions. The poll was taken March 22-27. The bill was pulled March 24.

In the days since the bill’s collapse, President Donald Trump has castigated on Twitter members of the Freedom Caucus for blocking a deal, prompting a rebuttal from many of them that it was moderate Republicans who were more responsible for its inability to pass.

The dip in poll numbers was “quite illuminating,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion.

“Between Freedom Caucus and more moderate Republicans, there’s clearly a split,” he said. “So there’s a lot of cause for dissension, and it’s not a surprise that we see that drop.”

Next year’s midterm elections are more than 18 months away, but the poll suggests Republicans may have reason to start worrying now. Forty-seven percent of voters said if the election were held today, they would vote for the Democrat. Thirty-eight percent said they would vote for the Republican.

In interviews with the poll’s participants, the frustration with the GOP’s divisions in Congress was clear.

Nicholas Kight supports Trump and considers himself a Republican.

But this 18-year-old student from southeast Missouri is, by his own admission, a little ambivalent about GOP lawmakers in Congress.

“The Republicans are split,” he said. “I think half of them didn’t like Trump and half of them were OK with Trump. They’re trying to work together, and some of them are saying, ‘I don’t like this.’

“To get anything accomplished, they gotta work together to do something,” he added.