Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainMcSally says current Senate should vote on Trump nominee Say what you will about the presidential candidates, as long as it isn't 'They're too old' The electoral reality that the media ignores MORE (R-Ariz.) is better liked by Democrats than by those in his own party, according to a new poll that shows Republicans holding an overall negative view of the veteran GOP senator.

Forty-four percent of Republicans surveyed in the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Wednesday hold a negative view of McCain, while only 35 percent have a positive view of him. Meanwhile, 52 percent of Democrats surveyed now see him in a positive light.

Overall, 43 percent of survey respondents had a favorable view of McCain and 28 percent a negative one.

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The latest numbers mark a vast departure from McCain's favorability in the run up to the 2008 presidential election, when he was the Republican nominee. At the time, 79 percent of Republicans viewed him positively and only 9 percent did negatively.

At the time of McCain's campaign against Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaObama calls on Senate not to fill Ginsburg's vacancy until after election Senate Republicans face tough decision on replacing Ginsburg Cruz: Trump should nominate a Supreme Court justice next week MORE, 69 percent of Democrats held negative opinions of the conservative senator.

The latest low GOP favorability marks for McCain come after the Arizona Republican cast the deciding vote over the summer to kill a scaled-down ObamaCare repeal bill in the Senate.

President Trump has frequently targeted McCain, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor earlier this year, and other Republicans in the Senate for failing to follow through on their health-care endeavors. Trump once called McCain's opposition a "tremendous slap in the face" to the party.

A previous Quinnipiac University poll also found that McCain was more popular among Democrats, with 74 percent of Democrats and only 39 percent of Republicans holding a favorable view of him. That poll was released shortly after he voted to sink a "skinny" ObamaCare repeal bill in July.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of 900 adults was conducted Oct. 23-26 and has a margin of error of 3.27 percentage points.