Poll: Majority of Americans Don't Know GOP Only Won the House

In the recent Pew survey, only 46% of Americans were correct in knowing that the GOP only won the House in the recent elections. Just 38% correctly identified John Boehner (R-Ohio) as the incoming House Speaker.

/ AP

While most Americans can say that the Republicans were seen as "winning" in the recent midterm elections, a recent survey suggests they're fuzzy on the details.

Pew Research Center's latest News IQ poll out Thursday asked 1,001 Americans 13 multiple choice questions covering general current events. Two covered foreign affairs while 11 pertained to political, cultural and economic conditions in the United States.

The question about which Americans responded with the most accuracy was which oil company was responsible for last summer's spill in the Gulf Coast. Eighty-eight percent correctly identified BP.

At the low end of the scale, only 15 percent knew that the prime minister of Britain is David Cameron. Respondents were given four choices, among them former BP chief executive Tony Hayward, who was also identified as the prime minister by 15 percent of respondents.

Most Americans understood that Republicans gained power in the midterm elections (75 percent got that correct), but more specific questions seemed to stump many poll takers.

Fewer than half of those who took the poll knew that Republicans only gained control of the House, not both the House and Senate. And fewer than four in ten knew that Rep. John Boehner would be the new Speaker of the House.

Americans also struggled with specifics when it came to economics questions. Seventy-seven percent knew that the federal budget deficit is now higher than it was in the 1990s. But just 14 percent of those surveyed knew that the current inflation rate in the United States was around one percent.

A previous Pew poll found that just 34 percent knew that the bank bailout (aka the Trouble Asset Relief Program) was enacted under the Bush administration. In this poll, only 16 percent knew that more than half of those loans have been paid back. An equivalent number stated, wrongly, that none of the money had yet been paid back to the government.

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to know that the current unemployment rate is roughly ten percent; 63 percent of Republicans said as much, compared to 48 percent of Democrats. Democrats were more likely to know that America spends more on defense than education, Medicare or interest on the debt; 42 percent of Democrats got that right, compared to 28 percent of Republicans.

[kazport]

I just have to laugh. CBS POLLS really? People seem to forget like Kasas 1946 that the Dems have had the Congress for the last 4 years. All of those programs, spending, Iraq... It all had to be approved by the democrats in Congress. So stop your whining and own it. Try acting like the Bush's with some class and dignity.

[euge005]

Class and dignity, Bush? The man unable to tell the truth? The war criminal? Give me a break. The poor fools that voted GOP have no understanding of the damage they are doing to their country and their own future, well except for the millionaires. They know exactly what it means.

[oldbasicgal]

Only won the 'House'? Many Americans don't know there is a House. Or a Senate. Or that together they are called Congress.

[NealFeldman]

America is, unfortunately, for the most part populated by idiots - ignorant uneducated twits who like to think they know things but in reality do not. (see: truthiness)

Ah well...

[nearl451]

Of course the biggest underlying factor is over 50% in this country understand very little about the structure and workings of the Federal Govt....hence they are easily frightened.

[oldbasicgal]

The saddest underlying factor is that 40% of your quoted 50% don't want to understand anything more than how to get their check from the government.

[mollydtt]

The media is to blame.
They spend so much time talking about the people that didn't win (Palin, Christine O'Donnell, etc.) that the person not paying close attention thinks they are in office.
Sad, but true.

[prohb]

Not only that, but only about 45% of the eligible voters actually voted. Of that total vote the Repubs got about 55%. Therefore, around a quarter of the eligible voters voted Republican.....most of them white males. And who are most of the eligible voters who did not vote?? You guessed it - the young and minorities. And how would they vote if they had? You guessed it - overwhelmingly Democratic. What we have here is politicians, primarily Republican, who know how to play 'the game', as our elections have turned out to be, of minority politics. The Repub leaders know this fact - that young and minorities don't vote. So what did they have to do to win in 2010? They had to do four things:
1) stay united no matter what and punish anyone in the party who strays,
2) motivate their base and anxious independents to anger against a THEM (big gov, liberals, environmentalists, immigrants, etc. etc.) with fear tactics and seemingly simple solutions with no specifics (throw the bums out, no taxes, no regulation, no... etc. etc.),
3) stall and demonize any legislation from the opposition, that given time, would have worked, and
4) scream bloody murder the loudest to get the media to listen and therefore control the message and consequently to intimidate the opposition (they got many Democrats to run like rabbits).
So this supposed Great Victory of the Republicans was really a Great Victory of a Few Conservative White Men.
So, in a way, what controls our country is a Dictatorship (taken surprise temporarily by the economic crisis in 2008 but they quickly turned it around) of a group that knows how to play 'the game'. It is the dictatorship of the minority party of mostly conservative white men......the Republicans and their corporate allies.______________________

?Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures. ... They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their insecurities.? George Gerbner

[RobAla]

The Republicans won more than just the 62 seats in the House. They gained 6 seats in the Senate, we will have 29 Republican Governors to 19 Democrat Governors, and Republicans took 682 state and local seats from Democrats. Democrats lost seats in every category. This was a national rejection of President Obama's and other Democrat's failed progressive policies. This was a butt whipping, and the President knows it. We seriously must reduce the federal government to a manageable size. We have to stop the expansion of the federal government at the expense of businesses and taxpayers. We must stop going $trillions in the hole. This crap has to stop.

[kansas1946]

Really? Funny I didn't hear all of this wailing and gnashing of teeth during the Bush administration who took us from the largest surplus in American history to the largest deficit in American history, by spending, spending, spending, with the full blessing of a Republican senate and a Republican house.

[RobAla]

kansas1946: I didn't like the deficits under President Bush and Democrat Congress (since 2006). The problem is that this Democrat President and Congress have accelerated the rate of going in debt, instead of correcting the problem. President Obama and this Democrat Congress have made matter far worse. Besides this, this stinking arrogant Democrat led Congress forced a bad health care bill on a majority of Americans who don't want it. I am sick of Washington not listening to the American people. I am sick of it feeding on the American taxpayer, and spending money irresponsibly. I am an independent conservative, and I am not a member of any political party. Until this election, I had never voted for all Republicans. The Democrat party has turned that party over to extremist progressives, and I can not support them again until they become more mainstream. Until this election, I had always voted a mixed ticket - voting for the individual - not a party. If these Republicans continue this irresponsible spending, I will vote them out - as well. We need people behaving as adults in Washington.

[kansas1946]

There is really no surprise here. This ignorance is what got the Republicans the house. Now the Republicans really owe the liberals a big thank you, because it is they who have dumbed down our schools for the lase fifty years, and allowed voting adults to be so ignorant of what is going on the Republicans won the day. Karma is a b....

[robbyr2]

You have to understand that Republicans get their information from Glenn Beck who never tried to go to college, Rush Limbaugh who flunked out in his freshman year of college, and Sarah Palin, who shows why a college education in journalism doesn't make you informed.

[retm-w]

Oh yes the you have to go to college, or your just a dummy attitude. I hope you never need a to have anything repaired, because the people that do that kind of work never went to college.

[maxcoffee-2009]

retm-w... really? Every person that repairs anything never went to college? Really?

[Rodeo_Joe]

One in Five Americans believe the Sun revolves around the Earth.

Sad, but True.

[RobAla]

I don't know any American who believes this. You must have some pretty off friends.

[ge556]

Four out of Five Americans Know Earth Revolves Around Sun
http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx

TruthTeller