Democrat Party Suffers its High Disapproval Rating, while Republicans Enjoy a Rising Approval Rating

By Rob Janicki

Not surprisingly, the Democrat brand across America has suffered a significant blow to its approval rating according to Gallup's latest polling.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After the midterm elections that saw the Democratic Party suffer significant losses in Congress, a record-low 36% of Americans say they have a favorable opinion of the party, down six percentage points from before the elections. The Republican Party's favorable rating, at 42%, is essentially unchanged from 40%. This marks the first time since September 2011 that the Republican Party has had a higher favorability rating than the Democratic Party. Read much more Gallup.com here

The elections actually have spoken more clearly than even the Gallup polling, since they are tangible facts that are irrefutable.  Republicans have opened the margin of approval considerably.  Now they have to demonstrate that those who voted for Republicans were not mistaken in doing so.  

Republicans cannot rest upon the outcome of the recent elections to believe they have some kind of mandate from voters.  Rather, they have been given a challenge by voters to turn America around from a failing and floundering leadership to a leadership of those who will actually move America along a more traditional path and direction of economic growth and world leadership.

Going forward and looking at the 2016 presidential election campaign cycle, we see the Democrat candidate bench as being old and tired in Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.  Elizabeth Warren, a relative newcomer in national Democratic politics, is a far left radical liberal and unlikely to motivate a national electorate with her outrageous rhetorical rants on time worn and thread bare liberal talking points.  Fauxcohontas, aka Dizzy Lizzy Warren, will simply not cut it on a national level.

The Republican success in this year's congressional midterm elections has been due in great part to the party presenting top quality candidates that could distinguish themselves from their Democrat opponents.  Was this skill or pure happenstance?  Only time will tell.

The Republican challenge in 2016 is to replicate this success of 2014 by fielding great electable candidates, especially at the presidential level.  The greatest challenge to the Republican Party is getting away from the seniority system of selecting candidates by their party tenure, rather than by their real ability to win head to head contests against Democrat candidates.  This is an absolute must for selecting a presidential candidate.  Will the Republican establishment be able to adapt to this necessary new model?  Only time will tell.