While Washington reporters are busy asking whether President Joe Biden is living up to his promises to reach across the aisle, far more Americans think it's congressional Republicans who are failing the bipartisanship test.
In a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, fully 67% of respondents say GOP leaders in Congress are doing too little to compromise with Biden, while just 22% called their approach "about the right amount" and 10% said they were doing too much.
Meanwhile, most Americans—51%—say Biden is compromising "about the right amount" with Republican leaders, while 39% say he's doing too little and 9% saying he's compromising "too much."
So overall 60% of Americans say the president is either executing the right amount of bipartisanship or too much of it.
This is helpful data for a White House now gauging how long it should spend trying to woo intransigent GOP lawmakers into cutting a deal on the historic investment President Biden wants to make in America's future. Fortunately, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already driven a stake through the heart of those negotiations. Now Americans are telling Biden, We get it—it's the Republicans.
One other notable datapoint in the April 30 – May 1 poll: 64% of Americans reported feeling optimistic about the direction of the country over the coming year. The last time optimism about the year to come even approached that level was in December 2006 at 61%, shortly after Democrats retook the House majority and Nancy Pelosi was on the cusp of becoming the first female speaker of the House.
On the eve of the 2016 election that ushered in Donald Trump, just 42% of Americans felt optimistic about the future.
In a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, fully 67% of respondents say GOP leaders in Congress are doing too little to compromise with Biden, while just 22% called their approach "about the right amount" and 10% said they were doing too much.
Meanwhile, most Americans—51%—say Biden is compromising "about the right amount" with Republican leaders, while 39% say he's doing too little and 9% saying he's compromising "too much."
So overall 60% of Americans say the president is either executing the right amount of bipartisanship or too much of it.
This is helpful data for a White House now gauging how long it should spend trying to woo intransigent GOP lawmakers into cutting a deal on the historic investment President Biden wants to make in America's future. Fortunately, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already driven a stake through the heart of those negotiations. Now Americans are telling Biden, We get it—it's the Republicans.
One other notable datapoint in the April 30 – May 1 poll: 64% of Americans reported feeling optimistic about the direction of the country over the coming year. The last time optimism about the year to come even approached that level was in December 2006 at 61%, shortly after Democrats retook the House majority and Nancy Pelosi was on the cusp of becoming the first female speaker of the House.
On the eve of the 2016 election that ushered in Donald Trump, just 42% of Americans felt optimistic about the future.