The public wants to see the Republican Party move away from Trump as soon as he leaves office. Overall, only 19% say the party should continue to treat Trump as its leader, while 77% say it should move on. Among Republicans, opinions are divided, with 48% saying the party should move on and 47% saying the party should continue to treat Trump as the party’s leader. Independents who are inclined towards the Republican Party, however, are much more likely to say that the party should move from Trump (62% think so).
And after months of the Trump campaign and conservative media sowing doubts about the results of the 2020 presidential election, self-styling Republicans are less likely to have confidence in the American elections than Democrats, which can complicate the Party’s efforts. Republican to take these voters to the polls in future contests. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Still, 75% of Republicans say they have little or no confidence that elections in the United States today reflect the will of the people, including a majority (57%) who say they are not. fully confident that the results of the elections represent the will of the people.
The Republican Party’s favorability index has dropped 9 points since before election day, with only 32% seeing it favorably. This change is mainly due to a decline in positive opinions among Republicans themselves: 92% had a positive opinion in October, only 76% now.
The drop in positive sentiment towards the GOP comes with Trump’s views also changing negatively. The president will step down this week with the lowest approval rating for his term, while most prefer him removed from office before January 20, and most describe his term as a failure.
The Democratic Party’s views, in turn, remained balanced, 49% have a favorable view now, compared to 46% in October. And self-styled Democrats are more likely to have a favorable view of their own party (89%) than Republicans say they have a positive view of the chosen party.
McConnell, the current majority leader who will become the minority leader after Biden is sworn in and the results of the Georgia Senate runoff are certified, are viewed more negatively than at any point in CNN polls across a wide range margin. About two-thirds (66%) have an unfavorable view of the Kentucky Republican, beating its previous high by 17 points. These unfavorable opinions have grown between party lines, rising 20 points among Republicans, 18 points among independents and 14 points among Democrats since a December 2019 poll.
McConnell’s negative points far outweigh those of any other important leader in Congress, although none are viewed positively. The views of the new Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, are almost divided, 39% favorable and 41% unfavorable. Most Democrats (75%) claim to have a positive view of Schumer, about 30 points better than McConnell’s favorability among Republicans.
On the side of the Chamber, Mayor Nancy Pelosi is viewed favorably by 44% and unfavorably by 52%. To a large extent, Democrats view the spokesperson positively (84% favorable), while Republicans are strongly negative towards Pelosi (94% have an unfavorable view of her). The minority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, is less well known than other leaders in Congress (42% do not have an opinion on him), but those with an opinion tend to be slightly negative (25% in favor to 33% unfavorable). Among Republicans, 43% have a favorable view and 21%, unfavorable.
Methodology
The methodology and weight of this survey has been modified compared to previous CNN surveys. The interviews conducted on cell phones represented 75% of the total, compared to 65% in previous surveys. Dialing extended over six days instead of four days, allowing more efforts to be made to contact those who are not easily accessible. The demographic weighting was adjusted to take into account more discrete categories of education divided by race, and a geographical weighting was applied to guarantee the representative distribution by population density. In addition, the results were weighted for party identification and lean among the independents, with targets computed using an average of the current poll plus three recent CNN polls.
CNN’s new survey was conducted by the SSRS from January 9th to 14th among a random national sample of 1,003 adults reached on landlines or cell phones by a live interviewer. The results of the complete sample have a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.