While Barack Obama’s numbers continue to hover like a dense fog just above the ground, the approval of the Republican Party in the wake of its massive midterm victory has hit a five-year high.
According to a Bloomberg Politics poll this week, Obama’s poll numbers persist in the mid to upper thirties while the GOP commands a 45% favorability among all voters across the spectrum.
J. Ann Selzer of Bloomberg interpretted what the poll means for the GOP:
“Now that the midterms are over, it seems to me it’s incumbent on them to pivot for 2016. They’ve had a strong ride in beating up on Obama. Now, exactly how long is that the relevant message? People are eventually going to want to hear ‘We’re going to do this.’ They’re going to want to hear a positive message—not just ‘we have to stop Obama.”
Perhaps what may be a cautionary tale against false confidence is that individual Republican leaders do not benefit from the bump in the party’s favorability ratings, which means voters are still undecided as to how they feel about Boehner, McConnell and others in terms of what they will do with their newfound congressional majority.
