The latest national Fox News poll offered quite a bit of bad news for Republicans. Voters aren’t impressed with their Supreme Court nominee, aren’t eager to vote for their candidates in the midterm elections, and don’t approve of their president’s job performance.
But toward the very bottom on the survey, there was a question we don’t generally see in most national polls:
Which of the following best describes how you feel about Democrats?
“They love America and truly want what’s best for the country,” or “They simply want what’s best for their party, even if it hurts the country.”
Which of the following best describes how you feel about Republicans?
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“They love America and truly want what’s best for the country,” or “They simply want what’s best for their party, even if it hurts the country.”
Among likely voters, Democrats didn’t fare all that well: 44% of the public believes Dems love the country and what what’s best for it, while 43% believe Democrats simply want what’s best for their party. Ideally, a popular party would see a much larger gap, with the former easily outnumbering the latter.
But public attitudes about the GOP were quite a bit worse. The Fox News poll found that 36% of likely voters believe Republicans sincerely want what’s best for the country, while a 52% majority sees Republicans putting their party’s interests above the nation’s interests.
This isn’t the usual poll result. We tend to focus on traditional metrics: approve or disapprove, favorable or unfavorable, plans to vote for one party’s candidate or the other party’s candidate, etc.
But the question in the Fox News poll stands out as different because it’s asking a different kind of question: it refers to deeper questions about patriotism and partisanship. And on this front, at least in this poll, Republicans aren’t faring especially well.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
