The moderates know that the party's move to the extreme right has cost them two presidential elections now, because it has pushed many voters away from the party -- like women, young voters, and minorities (who increase their percentage of the electorate with each passing election). But the teabaggers are currently in control, and they still believe they can regain power by moving further to the right and directing their efforts at only white voters (evidently ignoring the fact that young and female whites are turned off by their policies, which they refuse to change).
The upshot of all this is that the Republican Party, especially as it is represented in Congress, is now viewed very negatively by the general public -- and by most groups making up that public. This is verified by two new polls. The first is a Quinnipiac University Poll (conducted between February 27th and March 4th of 1,944 registered voters -- with a 2.2 point margin of error). The second is a survey by Public Policy Polling (conducted between June 11th and 13th of 603 registered voters -- with a margin of error of 4 points). Note that the party was viewed very unfavorably back in March, and there actions since then have done nothing to improve that -- since their numbers are still extremely low.
While the Democratic Party's numbers are nothing to brag about, they are significantly better than those of the Republicans. Those numbers are below, with the first number being those who view the Republicans favorably and the second number those who view them unfavorably. Just for comparison, the Democratic numbers are in parentheses:
QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY POLL
(Congressional Republican favorability)
General public...............20%/71% (32%/60%)
Republicans...............38%/53% (7%/90%)
Democrats...............9%/85% (64%/28%)
Independents...............17%/72% (22%/69%)
Men...............21%/72% (26%/68%)
Women...............19%/69% (38%/52%)
Whites...............21%/70% (26%/67%)
Blacks...............11%/84% (65%/27%)
Hispanics...............26%/65% (44%/47%)
College degree...............16%/79% (35%/61%)
No college deg...............22%/67% (31%/59%)
Under $50k...............20%/71% (36%/55%)
$50k-$100k...............21%/74% (30%/63%)
Over $100k...............19%/73% (32%/65%)
18 to 34...............20%/69% (29%/60%)
35 to 54...............21%/69% (34%/59%)
55 & over...............20%/74% (33%/61%)
PUBLIC POLICY POLLING
(Congressional Republican favorability)
General public...............24%/67% (40%/54%)
Republican...............40%/51% (5%/90%)
Democrat...............10%/84% (76%/19%)
Independent...............24%/61% (26%/62%)
Men...............24%/68% (39%/56%)
Women...............23%/67% (41%/52%)
Whites...............26%/66% (30%/63%)
Blacks...............14%/84% (77%/15%)
Hispanics...............28%/55% (65%/31%)
Others...............17%/63% (40%/52%)
18 to 29...............14%/74% (60%/34%)
30 to 45...............30%/57% (45%/50%)
46 to 65...............22%/70% (35%/59%)
Over 65...............27%/67% (34%/57%)
Northeast...............22%/71% (51%/41%)
South...............23%/64% (37%/57%)
Midwest...............23%/70% (33%/61%)
West...............30%/63% (41%/54%)
Rural...............30%/63% (33%/60%)
Suburban...............20%/69% (47%/40%)
Urban...............23%/71% (46%/46%)
It's pretty obvious that the voters, both a couple of months ago and now, are very angry at Congress. They are angry because the parties can't compromise and pass some legislation to get our economy moving again and create a lot of new jobs. And they are too happy about the failure to strengthen the background checks for gun purchases law (by closing the loopholes) -- since a huge majority still supports that. But these numbers show that the public blames the congressional Republicans more for these failures than the Democrats.
It should be especially worrying for the Republicans that they are being viewed very negatively by groups and regions they they normally think of as places and voters they can depend on -- like men, Whites, the South and Midwest, wealthy voters, older voters, and rural and suburban voters. They need these voters to hang on to the House in 2014 -- and right now, these voters have a lower opinion of them than the Democrats.
This doesn't necessarily mean the Democrats can flip the House in 2014 (there's still a long way to the election), but it could mean they have a much better chance to do it than most political pundits think they have.
(NOTE -- The picture above was found at the conservative website Right Speak.)