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51% Say Politics in D.C. Will Become More Partisan

At the State of the Union address, some Democrats and Republicans sat together to encourage more political civility, but when it comes to policy making, few voters are confident of much cooperation between the two parties.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that most Likely Voters (51%) expect politics in Washington, D.C. to become more partisan over the next year, but that's down from 54% last month and one of the lowest findings since June 2009.  Only 23% think politics will be more cooperative, while 26% are not sure.  (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

The Political Class is far more optimistic than Mainstream voters. Fifty-five percent (55%) of those in the Mainstream expect more partisanship, but 52% of Political Class disagree and expect more cooperation between the two parties.

Voters continue to see more partisanship in Congress than from the White House.

When it comes to President Obama, 32% of all voters think he is governing on a bipartisan basis.  Half (50%) say he’s governing like a partisan Democrat, and another 18% are undecided.  These findings show little change since late March 2009.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of GOP voters and 45% of voters not affiliated with either political party feel the president is governing like a partisan Democrat, but a plurality of Democrats (46%) say he’s governing in a bipartisan manner.

Obama’s job approval ratings have been on the rise in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, and now voters show less negativity toward both his leadership abilities and style. 

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls).  Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. 

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide was conducted on January 27-28, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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