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Thursday, December 13, 2012

New poll shows Republican Party is the rural party, and not much more than that, at least for now

The latest NBC-Wall Street Journal poll has more bad news for the Republican Party. Just look at the "favorable" and "unfavorable" ratings, Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and their NBC News colleagues write in the network's morning political-news briefing, First Read:

"The GOP’s fav/unfav rating in the poll now stands at 30% - 45% (minus 15), which is down from 36% - 43% (minus 7) right before the election. That’s compared with the Democratic Party’s 44% - 35% rating (plus 9). And other than self-described Republicans and conservatives, just two other groups have a net positive view of the GOP: folks who live in rural America (39% - 33%) and folks who live in the South (39% - 38%); that’s it."

When the poll respondents were asked to give a word or short phrase about the party, "65% offered a negative comment, including more than half of Republicans," First Read reports. "By contrast, 37% gave negative descriptions of the Democratic Party, while 35% were positive. A Republican politician or operative might look at our poll and say, 'Well, the good news is that our numbers can’t get any lower.' That might be true, and they could very well drag Democrats down with them if there isn’t a deal [on the 'fiscal cliff']. But there’s another way to look at the poll: Republicans have a lot to gain, too. And if they want to be a competitive national party again and not simply a regional, rural party, they need to make gains." (Read more)

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