Two-thirds of Democrats want someone in their party to challenge President Clinton for renomination, a national poll reported Wednesday.
The non-partisan survey found the reasons had more to do with Clinton personally than with his policies and that the Democratic Party had fallen sharply in public esteem.
It also found that Americans have high expectations that the Republican Congress will get things done in a satisfactory manner, but voters have a relatively low impression of GOP figures with whom they are familiar.
The survey by the Times Mirror Center For the People & The Press was conducted last weekend among 1,511 Americans, which is larger than the sample typically used by most national polls.
The survey asked self-identified Democrats if they would like to see Clinton challenged for renomination in 1996; 66 percent said yes.
Although there has been talk of a primary challenge to Clinton because of the Republican midterm election landslide, no major office-holder has indicated interest in such a race.
Jesse Jackson, a two-time candidate for the Democratic nomination, has broadly hinted he may challenge Clinton.
When all voters were asked about a 1996 race among Clinton, an unnamed Republican and an unnamed independent candidate, Clinton gets 33 percent of the vote, while the Republican gets 40 percent and the independent gets 18 percent.
In that matchup Clinton won a plurality only among blacks, Hispanics, voters over age 65, high school dropouts and those who earn less than $20,000 a year.
Comparing this data with a Gallup survey from the summer of 1979, 18 months before President Jimmy Carter was defeated for re-election, Kohut said, “Carter’s Gallup (job) approval rating was a meager 29 percent, fully 11 points below Clinton’s current reading. But his (personal) favorability rating was 62 percent-11 percent higher than Bill Clinton’s favorable rating in this poll.”
The Times Mirror survey showed that since July the favorable rating for the Democratic Party has dropped 12 points to 50 percent favorable, 46 percent unfavorable.
The GOP is seen as favorable by 67 percent, unfavorably by 27 percent. The poll found 35 percent of Americans see themselves as Republicans and 30 percent see themselves as Democrats, a reverse of the historical pattern.
Reflecting Clinton’s political problems, it also found that 43 percent of Americans want congressional Republicans to take the lead in solving America’s problems, compared to 39 percent who want Clinton to do it.
Fifty-two percent said they approved of “Republican congressional leaders’ policies and plans” and 62 percent said they expected those programs will be passed into law.
But despite the big jump in public esteem toward Republicans, Senate GOP leader Bob Dole’s (R-Kan.) ratings-58 percent favorable, 28 percent unfavorable-are unchanged since July.
House Speaker-elect Newt Gingrich (R- Ga.) is not as well known, but 25 percent rate him favorably, 28 percent unfavorably.
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