Voters Blame Republicans More for Congressional Dysfunction and the Speaker of the House Debacle
By Rob Todaro
On October 2, Republican Representative Matt Gaetz filed a motion to vacate the office of the speaker of the House of Representatives, removing Kevin McCarthy from his position the next day — marking the first time a speaker has been ousted. In a 216 to 210 vote, the entire Democratic caucus joined eight hardline conservative Republicans in voting to oust McCarthy. Since then, Republicans have been unable to agree on a speaker candidate, and it is unclear who will be able to secure the 217-vote majority necessary.
New Data for Progress polling finds that a majority of voters, including 54% of Independents, think that Republicans are to blame for the empty speaker chair in the House of Representatives.
57% of voters say: Republicans are to blame. They are the party with majority power and they haven't been able to govern effectively. Republicans should be able to agree on a Speaker of the House within their own party.
28% of voters say: Democrats are to blame. They should not have voted with eight Republicans to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. Democrats should have put aside their differences to save McCarthy for the sake of stability.
The overwhelming majority of voters (87%) agree with the statement that “Congress is dysfunctional.” Voters who agree with this statement mostly place blame on Republicans, with a plurality (43%) saying MAGA Republicans are “a great deal” responsible.
In the latest installment of the speaker’s race, Rep. Jim Jordan, a founding member of the hardline conservative Freedom Caucus, failed to secure the votes necessary on a third ballot to become speaker. Data for Progress finds that many of the policies and legislation Jordan has endorsed — such as cutting funding for Social Security and Medicare, voting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and criminalizing the distribution of abortion pills — are widely unpopular with voters, including Independents:
These findings emphasize that while voters blame both Democrats and Republicans for dysfunction in Congress, voters place a greater share of the blame on Republicans. Furthermore, voters blame Republicans for the ongoing lack of a speaker of the House of Representatives, and a majority oppose many of the policies that Jim Jordan has endorsed over the course of his 16-year career in Congress.
Rob Todaro (@robtodaro) is the Communications Director at Data for Progress.
Survey Methodology
From October 18 to 19, 2023, Data for Progress conducted an omnibus survey of 1,329 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.