Reid’s Approval Ratings (Even) Lower than Cheney’s
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said of Vice President Dick Cheney, “I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating.” It’s a great line, which earned Quote of the Day honors from a href=”http://politicalwire.com/archives/2007/04/25/quote_of_the_day.html” title=”Quote of the Day”>Taegan Goddard and an “Oh, Snap!” from Ezra Klein.
Unfortunately, a new Harris Interactive survey (WSJ [$]) finds that Reid’s ratings are even lower than Cheney’s!
|
|
Excellent |
Pretty Good |
Only Fair |
Poor |
Not Sure |
Positive* |
Negative** |
|
|
% |
% |
% |
% |
% |
% |
% |
|
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice |
12 |
33 |
29 |
21 |
6 |
45 |
50 |
|
President George W. Bush |
7 |
22 |
22 |
48 |
2 |
28 |
70 |
|
Democrats in Congress |
5 |
29 |
34 |
24 |
7 |
35 |
58 |
|
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi |
5 |
25 |
33 |
23 |
14 |
30 |
56 |
|
Vice President Dick Cheney |
5 |
20 |
25 |
44 |
7 |
25 |
68 |
|
Defense Secretary Robert Gates |
4 |
25 |
36 |
19 |
16 |
29 |
55 |
|
Congress |
3 |
24 |
43 |
27 |
4 |
27 |
69 |
|
Republicans in Congress |
3 |
20 |
41 |
33 |
4 |
22 |
74 |
|
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid |
2 |
19 |
35 |
17 |
26 |
22 |
52 |
Cheney 250 percent more people rating him “Excellent” than Reid (a paltry 5% vice 2%), and a slight advantage in “Pretty Good” ratings, too. His composite “positive” rating is 25 percent to Reid’s 22. Both are horrible, frankly, but Cheney’s is technically higher (albeit within the margin of error).
Perhaps Reid should have said “… a 68 percent negative rating.” There, he would have been on safe ground, since only 52 percent view him negatively. Then again, 26 percent have no idea who he is, compared to only 7 percent for Cheney.
via Republican congressional communications staff
UPDATE: To be clear, this is a WSJ/Harris Interactive poll, not an internal GOP poll. I merely added the source credit to indicate that the Republican communications team is pushing the results, which is useful information.
Yep, it’s an online poll, albeit a fairly sophisticated one. The numbers for Bush and Congress track others I’ve seen recently, though, so there’s no reason to think the numbers for Reid et al are off. Usually, lesser figures aren’t included in these polls, so I don’t have readily available comparables.
Here are the latest snapshots from RealClear Politics on presidential and congressional approval:
It looks like the Harris numbers are lowish across the board, although perhaps that’s a function of making “Only Fair” part of the negative ratings as much as it is about the sample.
UPDATE: While we’re on the subject of partisan spinning of poll numbers, both Charles Franklin and Mark Blumenthal note that Reid is not the only Democrat to wildly understate Cheney’s approval ratings. Neither have corresponding numbers for Reid.
PollingReport.com does have numbers for Reid and Cheney. The Reid numbers vary WILDLY, ranging from 5 percent approval in a January CBS poll to 46 percent in an April ABC/WaPo survey. The recent polls all put Cheney in the mid-30s. The numbers are directly comparable, though, because Reid is so much less known than the VP.
I guess it depends on what poll you use. Maybe the last week has dropped that to nothing, but I kind of doubt it.
Still, keep passing along the R’s press releases. Gotta love their talking points.
Did the RCC tell you that this was a poll of ONLINE users? The methodology is not clearly articulated, but I would question how much this reflects actual public opinion.
Do you have further info than what was published on WSJ.com?
Well, that’s a shockingly stupid way to read the polling on Reid and Cheney.
Yes, lets be explicit about this James.
A “normal” poll, using standard methods, such as the ABC/WaPo poll, found Reid with a 46% approval rating, in a poll conducted from April 12-15.
The 5% approval that you referenced was from a poll in January, before he took over as majority leader and in which 70% claimed to have never heard of Harry Reid, and a further 16% were undecided. To present that as if the 5% was indicative of massive disapproval is pretty damn misleading.
I don’t know why you continue to waste space on meaningless polls. The only poll that matters is the poll of the voters on election day. Any approval rating poll during a term in office is about as useful as a single sheet of what’s-her-name’s toilet paper.
I don’t believe Harry Reid’s comment was intended to be accurate. I believe it was intended to be disrespectful. It was sort of a polite way of saying, “Go f*ck yourself, DICK.”