Poll: McCain is well-liked on both sides
He may not have been elected president, but Sen. John McCain can take some consolation that, as his sixth U.S. Senate term gets underway, Americans from both parties hold him in high regard.
McCain, R-Ariz., was viewed favorably by 57 percent of Americans and viewed unfavorably by 33 percent, according to a national poll conducted last month by the Pew Research Center. Ten percent had no opinion.
What perhaps is less expected is that, more than eight years after losing his White House race against President Barack Obama, McCain is enjoying bipartisan popularity.
Among Republicans and GOP leaners, 59 percent viewed the party’s 2008 presidential nominee favorably while 57 percent of Democrats did, too. His favorable number among Democrats skyrocketed 19 percentage points from 38 percent in 2013, Pew said.
“I was very pleased by that. I was surprised,” McCain, 80, told The Arizona Republic on Friday at an interview in his Phoenix office.
McCain gave this interpretation of the results, which also hints that he intends to conduct himself independently in the new President Donald Trump era: “I think it’s a long record, but I also think people expect John McCain to be John McCain. Because in that Pew poll the numbers of Republican approval and disapproval are the same as Democrat approval and disapproval.”
McCain, who also is chairman of the influential Senate Armed Services Committee, was viewed unfavorably by 34 percent of Republicans and GOP leaners while 7 percent had no opinion. He was viewed unfavorably by 33 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners with 10 percent expressing no opinion.
McCain’s on-again, off-again feud with Trump, which started nearly two years ago, may help explain his rise in esteem among Democrats. He has bucked his party at various times throughout his career and is seen by many as willing to stand up to Trump when he deems it necessary. McCain’s Democratic opponent last year, former U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, tried but failed to tie McCain to Trump during the 2016 campaign, and McCain wound up winning re-election by double digits.
Other leaders’ favorability lags
Trump had a 57 percent public unfavorable rating in the Pew poll; only 41 percent said they had a favorable impression of him.
McCain’s numbers in the Pew poll were far stronger than the top Capitol Hill leaders’.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was viewed unfavorably by 45 percent, compared with 27 percent who viewed him favorably.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who took over for retired former Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, was relatively unknown across the country: 36 percent had no opinion of him, while 34 percent viewed him unfavorably and 30 percent viewed him favorably.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was viewed unfavorably by 43 percent and favorably by 36 percent, with 21 percent having no opinion.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was viewed unfavorably by 49 percent while viewed favorably by 33 percent, with 18 percent having no opinion.
The Pew telephone poll of 1,503 adults was conducted Feb. 7-12. The overall margin of error was plus or minus 2.9 percentage points; the margins of error for the survey’s GOP and Democratic samples were plus or minus 4.7 percentage points and plus or minus 4 percentage points, respectively.