John Hawkins polled a large number of conservative bloggers on the 2006 election (I was asked but didn’t participate) and got some interesting results.
1) Do you think the GOP is going to retain control of the House?
Yes (38) — 61.3%
No (24) — 38.7%
According to all the reputable polling I’ve seen over the past couple of weeks, the Republicans are going to lose at least 20 seats. Yet, for some reason, there is still a sense among a large number of conservatives that the polling is simply wrong. I’m afraid they’ll be sadly disappointed come election night.
2) Do you think the GOP is going to retain control of the Senate?
Yes (56) — 90.3%
No (6) — 9.7%
Here, they’re in synch with the polls. Of course, given their answers to the first question, it’s coincidental.
On the following question, bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-6 unranked selections from 25 different options that were presented. Their answers come after the question with the number of bloggers selecting each choice in parentheses and the percentage of bloggers picking each answer following that.
3) The Republican Party has been having a lot of difficulty during this election cycle. If you had to pick 1-6 reasons for that, what would they be?
Top Tier Issues
W) The way the war in Iraq has gone. (48) — 77.4%
P) The GOP isn’t doing enough to control spending. (46) — 74.2%
K) Republicans don’t fight back hard enough against Democratic attacks. (37) — 59.7%
D) Because the GOP is perceived as being too soft on illegal immigration. (32) — 51.6%
S) The perception that the GOP is corrupt. (32) — 51.6%
J) President Bush’s approval rating. (21) — 33.9%
O) The GOP isn’t being aggressive enough in the war on terror. (19) — 30.6%
R) The perception that the Federal Government did a poor job of handling Hurricane Katrina. (19) — 30.6%
V) The Mark Foley scandal. (17) — 27.4%
Aside from choice J) being rather odd–Bush’s approval ratings are a symptom, not a cause, of Republican “difficulty”–nothing too surprising here about the choices. The rankings are somewhat more controversial.
The Iraq War is, without question, far and away the biggest issue this cycle. Indeed, that spending is rated almost as high is bizarre. Among fiscal conservatives, though, it’s a major reason why enthusiasm is so low.
