The 2010 Midterm Elections

November 8th, 2010 by Paul DeBenedetto

With the Republican Party gaining a majority in the House of Representatives and adding additional seats in the Senate, the 2010 midterm elections have changed the face of government.

Pundits from both sides of the political spectrum, liberal and conservative, speculated as to what the outcome of the elections would be. At times, the media narrative focused on the Tea Party, and Republican “outsider” candidates who would move into Washington and change the “status quo.” Other times the media chose to focus on Sarah Palin’s influence on the elections, having backed successful candidates in the Republican primaries, and gone on to campaign for other Republican candidates during the midterm.

Overall, the buzz word was “wave”; as in, a wave of Republicans taking seats from the Democrats.

I asked people what they thought of the midterm elections.

(A note on sample size: conservatives were not as well represented in my polling as I would have liked, so I thought it best to separate the data by liberals and conservatives. However, polling will continue, and I’d love a larger sample size, so if you haven’t taken the survey, or know someone who would be interested, click here to visit the poll!)

As you might imagine, results to this poll went down “party lines,” with most Democrats/Liberals polling differently than Conservatives/Republicans, though there were some interesting tidbits. Here are what the two groups thought about this election being a referendum on the Obama Administration’s policies:

Republican/Conservative

Democrat/Liberal

As you can see, the majority of conservatives polled against the president, while the majority of democrats polled with the president. That’s to be expected. However, the overwhelming majority of conservatives agreed that Obama’s policies were to blame, while just over half of liberals sided with the president. This is a clear reflection of the president’s approval rating, which is still dropping.

When asked whether the Tea Party played an important role in the outcome of the election, the answers were surprisingly unanimous:

Republican/Conservative

Democrat/Liberal

Overwhelmingly, the people polled– whether liberal or conservative– believed the Tea Party played a significant role in the elections. Conservatives obviously felt more strongly about this issue, but amongst liberals there was very little disagreement. The numbers when looking at whether people would vote for Sarah Palin over Barack Obama were a little more stark:

Republican/Conservative

Democrat/Liberal

I’ll just let that last graph speak for itself.

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