Poll Shows Cantor’s Not The Only GOP Idiot In Trouble Nationally!

By Rika Christensen 

Eric Cantor’s stunning primary loss may herald other GOP losses in November. A recent poll from HuffPost/YouGov show that Republicans aren’t sure about other sitting Congress members either, as the poll found Republicans feel that the current GOP leaders aren’t conservative enough.

One has to wonder what “not conservative enough” means for these people. Cantor was plenty conservative, but his district apparently wants a hard-core Tea Partier who’s even more likely to engage in obstruction and try to legislate people’s private lives than even Cantor was, to take office.

It’s very unlikely that Cantor’s district would vote for a Democrat.

McConnell, another face of GOP obstructionism, is having a tough time against Democrat Allison Lundergan Grimes right now. Because that’s a Senate seat, more people from more districts will vote in that election. You can gerrymander individual districts to death, but it’s much harder to guarantee the safety of the Senate seats for one party or the other.

Grimes is painting herself as a pro-coal Democrat, and some people in Kentucky are fed up enough with Mr. Our-Only-Goal-is-to-Make-Obama-A-One-Term-President McConnell to listen to her.

Grimes also has Senator Elizabeth Warren’s backing now.

John Boehner is a weak leader, unable to pull his party together on anything, and thus, unable to present Republican alternatives to Democratic plans. He often doesn’t put bills to the floor for a vote if he doesn’t have enough of his party behind him, even if, between Republicans and Democrats, he’d have the votes to pass it.

While he’s following the Hastert rule there, the Hastert rule isn’t actually a rule that the Speaker must follow, and when it comes to crucial votes (like whether to end a government shutdown and pass a clean resolution), all adhering to the Hastert rule does is, well, obstruct. Especially if the bill will pass with votes from both parties.

Unfortunately, it looks like Boehner only faces token Democratic opposition in Ohio. Of all three, Cantor’s already gone, McConnell is having trouble, but Boehner will probably stay, even though Tea Partiers are unhappy with his performance.

Nate Silver’s website, FiveThirtyEight.com, currently predicts that Republicans will win the seats of retiring Democratic senators, and that the Senate will end up 50-50, with the tie-breaking vote going in favor of the Democrats because Vice President Biden is a Democrat.

The biggest reason for that may be that Republicans are doing a better job of recruiting electable candidates; something they had considerable trouble with in 2012, when they thought the Tea Party nuts were their ticket to everything. People are also unhappy with Obama’s foreign policy decisions, which is hurting the Democratic Party as a whole.

Unfortunately, the HuffPo/YouGov poll doesn’t actually spell doom for the Republicans, per se, but it could, and should, give cocky Republicans pause, even those that aren’t up for re-election this year.

Their positions are not quite as secure as they think; even Nate Silver’s predictions are shifting slightly back towards Democrats.

More from AATTP on the 2014 midterm elections:

• Allison Grimes Tops Turtle McConnell 49%-46% in New Shocking Poll!
• Eric Cantor Steps Down as House Majority Leader After Stunning Defeat (Video)
• The Daily Show: The Tea Party Sucks So Bad, Turtle McConnell EASILY Beat His Rival (Video)
• Weeping Cheeto John Boehner on Cantor’s Defeat: It’s All Obama’s Fault (Video)