Advertisements

It should come as no surprise to anyone that Republican satisfaction with the election process is dropping like a rock.

According to Gallup, only 30 percent of Republicans say the election process is working the way it should, down from 46 percent in January, even though “Most Americans still say there is at least one good candidate running.”

The overall percentage of Americans who thought things were working the way they should stood at 37 percent in January, and that too is down to 30 percent in March, but the drop is driven by Republican discouragement more than Democrat.

Advertisements

Take a look at the trend since January for both parties:

Asked, “Does the way the presidential campaign is being conducted make you feel as though the election process is working as it should, or not?,” the percentage of Republican-leaners who answered yes went from 46 in January to 41 in February to 30 in March, while Democrats actually saw an upswing in confidence between February’s 29 percent and March’s 32.

Gallup tells us that,

It is unclear from the data if partisans are reacting to the developments in their own party’s nomination race, the other party’s nomination race or both. Republicans’ increasingly dour sentiments may be related to Trump — either the increasing inevitability that he will gain his party’s nomination, or the way controversial aspects of his campaign have dominated the news. Trump is the least popular Republican nominee among members of his own party in recent elections going back to 1996, and he is much less well-liked than Hillary Clinton is among Democrats. Democrats’ more stable but still cynical views may be based on their views of what is happening on the GOP side, or they may not be pleased with something about their own party’s campaign.

Certainly the circus-like atmosphere of the Republican race must be playing a large roll, though Gallup does not demonstrate this. The mudslinging by this point is commonplace, while the contest between Clinton and Sanders remains largely civil, if contentious, with no threats being made against wives, for example.

This latest ploy of Trump’s to reveal sordid details about Cruz’s wife led to a instantly popular one word response from Trump’s self-identified persecutor, Megyn Kelly, who tweeted, “Seriously?”

If the Republicans could stick to the issues and stop calling each other names, that would certainly impress Democrats. More, it would really surprise them. It is less clear whether that would impress Republicans, fed a steady diet of ad hominem attacks directed at President Obama since 2009.

One thing is certain: it is difficult to imagine a more cynical Republican election cycle than what we’ve seen so far in 2016. Americans deserve better, but it has to be said, Republicans, including Republican voters, have brought this state of affairs into being.