Limbaugh’s Favorable Rating: 19 Percent

Over the past few weeks, the White House has been casting right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh as the head of the Republican Party, and based on a new CBS News poll, it appears they may be onto something: According to the poll, Limbaugh’s favorable rating stands at just 19 percent, a full 43 points lower than President Obama’s.

Limbaugh’s unfavorable rating, meanwhile, stands at 40 percent, while 41 percent say they don’t know or don’t have an opinion. Not surprisingly, the conservative commentator, who has said he hopes that the president’s economic policies fail, is far more popular with Republicans – 47 percent view him favorably – than with Democrats, just seven percent of whom view him favorably.

The poll also found that Republicans are relatively pessimistic about the future of their party. Just 40 percent believe the party is going in the right direction, while nearly as many – 36 percent – say it is going in the wrong direction. Among all Americans, just 27 percent say the party is going in the right direction and 48 percent say it is going in the wrong direction.

In March 1994 – right before the Republican takeover of Congress – views were quite different. A Gallup/CNN/USA Today taken at the time found that 58 percent believed the Republican leadership was taking the party in the right direction while just 24 percent thought it was headed in the wrong direction.

Read The Complete Poll (PDF)

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