Poll: More than Half of GOP Voters Displeased with Boehner Budget Compromise

A second part of the new Pat Caddell/People’s Poll was released early this morning indicating an alarming level of dissatisfaction from GOP/GOP leaners with Speaker of the House John Boehner.

Fifty-one percent said they disapprove of the budget compromise (the passing of the Cromnibus) when asked: “Republican leaders in Congress recently decided to compromise with President Obama and Democrats and fully fund the federal budget for the next ten months instead of waiting for the new Congress in January. Do you approve or disapprove with this compromise?” Almost one-third (30%) strongly disapprove of the compromise.

Pervasive dissatisfaction can be seen from the numbers, illustrating why GOP/GOP leaners voted Republican in the 2014 elections. Almost 2/3 voted Republican to stop Obamacare, 58% voted GOP to stop Obama’s amnesty for illegal immigrants, and almost half (47%) voted to stop the entire Obama agenda.

Furthermore, more than half (56%) say that the GOP leadership should have used their negotiating leverage and only agreed to a short-term budget to stand up to Obama’s policies.  Around one-third say that GOP leaders did the right thing by compromising and funding the government until September.

These new numbers may have given birth to a growing revolt against Boehner’s re-election as speaker of the House. Since the initial poll questions directly concerning Boehner were dropped on Friday showing 60% of GOP voters/GOP leaners wanting to give “someone else” a chance at the speakership, two people have come forward (Rep. Ted Yoho and Rep. Louie Gohmert) to challenge Boehner.

It appears the strategy is to push the speaker vote to a second round of voting after Boehner is damaged in the first round by failing to receive a majority of votes. It doesn’t much matter if any of the alternatives are viable once a second round of voting starts, as congressional celebrities will no doubt jump in believing it’s their time to take the helm now that Boehner’s been compromised. As members are returning from spending the holidays back in their districts and hearing from unhappy constituents, they will not have the excuse that there was no other choice for speaker.  With such high levels of dissatisfaction, the threat of a primary challenge in 2016 looms large as incumbent congressmen struggle to justify why they squandered an opportunity for changing the guard to dissatisfied constituents.

Back in November, Boehner was given the wink and nod as speaker to be formalized in January by the vote this Tuesday. But the November meeting took place well before the subsequent lame duck shenanigans and budget compromise by the GOP leadership.