Voters might lean Republican amid this year's anti-incumbent fervor, but that doesn't mean they're giddy at the idea of GOP control in Washington.

Registered voters are evenly split at 32 percent when asked if the country would be better with Republicans or Democrats in control of Congress next year, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center. Perhaps more telling, nearly as many voters, 30 percent, said it doesn't make a difference which party is in control.

When likely voters are sampled, Republicans make only marginal gains. Thirty-eight percent of them say the country would be in better shape if the GOP took control of Congress, compared to 34 percent who prefer Democrats. Twenty-three percent said it made no difference.

Continue reading Dems Looking For Solace In Suburbs Are Out Of Luck

If you believe midterm elections are a referendum on the president, then President Obama could be forgiven for being a bit down, given the shellacking his party seems to be headed toward in a week. But if there is a silver lining the White House wants to cling to, consider this: He's in better shape than Ronald Reagan was at this point in his presidency.

Forty-seven percent of the public would like to see Obama run for reelection in 2012, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center.

That number, while falling short of a majority, is still much higher than Reagan's was in August 1982 -- 36 percent, according to Gallup polling. Fifty-one percent said Reagan should not run for reelection. A few months later, after Reagan's Republicans lost 26 House seats and gained a Senate seat in the November midterm elections, an even higher number, 56 percent, said Reagan should not run in 1984.

A little less than two years later, Reagan beat former Vice President Walter Mondale in a landslide, winning 49 states and 59 percent of the popular vote.

Continue reading Obama In Better Shape Than Reagan

Just over half of Americans likely to vote in next week's midterms want the next Congress to repeal this year's health care overhaul if Republicans gain power on Capitol Hill, according to a new poll, a dramatic rebuke to a sitting president and freshly minted statute.

Fifty-one percent of voters most likely to vote support taking the new health care law off the books if the GOP takes the House and Senate, or either, while 41 percent oppose repeal, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center.

Those results are part of an overall hit-and-miss response Republicans draw from those surveyed about the party's broader agenda.

Continue reading Poll Shows Voters Favoring Health Overhaul Repeal

It's hard to find a national politician who is popular enough to help a candidate win this fall.

President Obama has mostly shied from campaigning for Democrats this year, and a new poll shows why: A third of those surveyed say they are less likely to vote for candidates on whose behalf the president campaigns, and only a quarter said they were more likely to vote for a candidate Obama stumped for.

It wasn't just the president who had anchor-like numbers. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the party's 2008 vice-presidential nominee, could only motivate 15 percent of those surveyed to say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate she campaigned for, which she has been aggressively doing. Forty-two percent were less inclined to follow her lead, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center.

Continue reading For Campaigning Help, Thanks, But No Thanks

Public perception that Washington feuding is on the rise and has escalated to historic levels.

It was one of President George W. Bush's admitted disappointments in his presidency: his inability to "change the tone in Washington," failing to curb the recrimination free-for-all that has come to define each policy debate. Almost two years into his presidency, it looks like President Barack Obama is saddled with the same problem.

Seventy-seven percent of Americans think Republicans and Democrats in Washington have been bickering and opposing each other more than usual. That is the highest that number has been in more than 17 years. An all-time low 8 percent said they had been working together more to solve problems, less than a third of those who had reported cooperation in April 2009, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center.

Continue reading Americans See Congress As 'Bickering,' And Unproductive

Republican congressional leaders have sought to frame the upcoming midterms as a referendum on Democrats and their ability to govern, but six in 10 Americans have a negative view of the very GOP chiefs making the argument. That level of GOP unpopularity leaves the Democrats some campaign leverage against their GOP critics with less than a month to go before Election Day.

Continue reading 60 Percent Disapproval Of GOP Leaders

While most Americans admit that they do not know much about what their House member stands for, roughly half of them say they trust their representatives' judgment. While Congress overall receives abysmal performance ratings -- 13 percent approve of the job it's doing, while 79 percent disapprove -- about the same number of respondents believe their member of the House does a good job delivering government projects and money to their districts as those who do not. These are findings from the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center.

Respondents were divided evenly over whether their members were in touch with their constituents, an asset in a political environment where the Beltway tinge is widely regarded as lethal.

Continue reading Voters Have Relatively High Trust In Their Own Members

Americans between ages 18 and 29 are significantly more likely to be satisfied with the overall state of the country than those who are 65 and older, according to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center.

While fully 72 percent of voters 65 and over saying they are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, only 39 percent of those under 30 share that dissatisfaction.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents between 18 and 29 said they believed the federal government would make progress in solving the nation's crucial problems over the next 12 months, while 38 percent said they did not. Just 7 percent said they had no confidence at all. The numbers are part of an overall pattern that shows sharper optimism about the country and higher approval of President Obama's job performance among younger and minority voters, contours of support that match core groups in his winning 2008 coalition.

Continue reading Young People And Minorities Are All The President Has Left

It's the national version of a conversation common to many relationships: I understand what you're saying, I just don't necessarily agree with you.

By an almost two-to-one margin, the public believes President Obama has done a better job of explaining his plans and vision for the country than Republican congressional leaders have. The latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center, comes in the wake of House Republicans' "Pledge to America," a set of policy promises to countervail Obama and congressional Democrats that enjoyed heavy media coverage since its unveiling last Thursday at a hardware and lumber store in Virginia.

Continue reading Obama Gets Higher Marks For Clarity Over The GOP

Nearly half of America -- including nearly two-thirds of Republicans and 53 percent of independents -- admires political leaders who refuse to compromise. This is further evidence that the current political atmosphere is not merely contentious, but hostile to any hope of negotiated settlements to the many political and policy differences that define the current landscape.

In essence, the Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center, suggests a confrontational mood in the country that may mirror the partisan wrangling in Washington and might even give trumped-up cable TV's political spout-fests some rationale for their vein-popping intensity.

Continue reading Americans Want Their Leaders To Stand And Fight