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In our latest survey we asked 706 conservative Republican voters* to rate Republicans in Congress on a scale of 1 to 10 on three questions: how they’re doing on Medicare, jobs, and the debt ceiling.
Overall, the results don’t look good for congressional Republicans. Respondents don’t think their representatives are doing a very good job explaining the GOP’s Medicare and jobs plans. On the Medicare front, the result is especially interesting because elsewhere in our survey, when asked if they support the GOP’s Medicare plan, more than 70% said yes.
So the takeaway from this is that grassroots conservatives are bullish on the reforms but think Republicans are doing a lousy job defending them.
On the three questions at issue, here is how respondents replied (“badly” signifies a response between 1 and 5, “well” signifies a response between 6 and 10):
How Republicans have done explaining their Medicare reform plan:
- 69.6% badly
- 30.4% well
How Republicans have done explaining their plan to create jobs:
- 70.5% badly
- 29.5% well
How Republicans are doing holding Democrats’ feet to the fire on the debt ceiling:
- 51.3% badly
- 48.7% well
Perhaps most interesting is what we might call the “intensity score” for congressional Republicans. If we average the “very badly” (ranks of 1 and 2) and “very well” (ranks of 9 and 10) scores for all three questions, the results are:
- 13% very badly
- 4% very well
This means that, on average, conservative voters are more intensely dissatisfied than satisfied with the job Republicans in Washington are doing on these three big issues.
* Respondents are a part of the Republican Panel, which consists of conservative Republican voters who are on average likely to donate time or money to Republican candidates. The Republican Panel has been assembled by YouGov for ConservativeHome.
