Democrats Achieve Landscape-Changing Victory

Pew has done a major poll post-election that is the first good look at how much the Democrats’ victory has altered the political terrain. Here are some of the survey’s major points:

• Reactions to the Democratic victory are as positive as they were to the GOP's electoral sweep of Congress a dozen years ago. Six-in-ten Americans say they are happy that the Democratic Party won control of Congress; in December 1994, roughly the same percentage (57%) expressed a positive opinion of the GOP's takeover.

• Half of Americans approve of the Democrats' plans and policies for the future, which also is comparable to approval of the GOP's proposed agenda in 1994.

• By 51%-29%, more Americans want Democratic leaders—rather than President Bush—to take the lead in solving the nation's problems. Twelve years ago, the public was divided over whether GOP congressional leaders (43%), or President Clinton (39%), should take the lead in addressing national problems.

• Roughly six-in-ten (59%) say Democratic leaders will be successful in getting their programs passed into law; again, this is on par with the confidence that Americans voiced about GOP legislative prospects in December 1994.

• The public is dubious that the election will lead to increased bipartisanship on Capitol Hill—just 29% think that relations between Republicans and Democrats will get better in the year ahead.

• The broad opposition to President Bush among independents is reflected in their strong preference (53%-25%) that Democratic leaders, rather than the president, take the lead in solving the nation's problems.

• Sen. Barack Obama has emerged as the leading rival to Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's nomination—39% of party voters back her, compared with 23% for Obama.

• Regarding Iraq, the public remains divided over whether the U.S. should bring its troops home as soon as possible (48%) or keep troops in Iraq until the situation has stabilized (46%).

• Roughly seven-in-ten voters (69%) say they got most of their campaign news from television, and more voters relied on cable news (30%) than either network news (24%) or local news (22%).