The number of people blaming President Obama for a potential government shutdown is up 3 percentage points from earlier this month, while fewer people are blaming the GOP, the most recent CNN/ORC International poll shows.
The poll, conducted over the weekend and released Monday morning, states that “46% [of participants] say they would blame congressional Republicans for a government shutdown, with 36% saying the president would be more responsible and 13% pointing fingers at both the GOP in Congress and Obama.”
The same poll taken from Sept. 6-8 showed that 33 percent blamed Obama and 51 percent blamed the GOP, meaning that the number of people holding Republicans responsible for the shutdown is down five points and the number blaming Obama is up by three. These changes were consistent across most demographic groups, according to CNN polling director Keating Holland.
American Enterprise Institute pollster Karlyn Bowman told The Daily Caller that the updated 46-36 split is “not insignificant.”
“People are so dissatisfied with the federal government,” she said. “Both parties are in such poor order. Obama’s numbers have been going down. This is a clear trend in every major poll. Nobody looks very good these days.”
Similar polls have been taken which show even narrower margins. The Pew Research Center’s poll, published on Sept. 23, claims that 39 percent of people think the blame falls on Republicans and 36 percent blame the president.