As you probably know by now, the teabagger element of the congressional GOP wants to use the upcoming debt ceiling debate (or the continuing budget resolution fight) to defund or repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). They want to shutdown the federal government to get that done. But they are having some trouble in unifying their party behind that effort -- with a few Republicans saying it can't be done, and others being afraid such a move could hurt them in the 2014 election.So the congressional Republicans commissioned Republican pollster David Winston to do a poll for them. The hope was that such a poll would unify Republicans by showing them that the people were against Obamacare and supported the threat to shut down the government to get it defunded or repealed. But the poll didn't turn out like they had hoped. After polling 1,000 registered voters on July 31st and August 1st, Winston found just the opposite of what Republicans had hoped he would find.
It turns out that only 23% of the general public supported the threat to shut down the government, while a whopping 71% opposed it. But that wasn't the worst news (although it was certainly bad enough). It turns out that many members of their own party oppose the threat to shut down the government -- including 53% of all Republicans, 51% of people planning to vote GOP in 2014, and 61% of Republican women. In addition, about half of Republican men and half of conservatives also opposed the plan.
This poll may have put a dagger in the back of the plan, because it clearly shows that those who vote to shut down the government if Obamacare is not repealed will likely incur the wrath of the voting public -- and with such a large percentage in opposition, it could even help the Democrats to win back many seats in Congress. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of Republicans in closely-contested seats now backing away from the teabaggers' silly plan.
