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Voters See More Cooperation in D.C. Over the Next Year

Just a week after national elections that shifted control of the House to Republicans, the number of voters expecting more partisanship in Washington, D.C. has dropped to its lowest level since March of last year.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 49% of Likely U.S. Voters think politics in the nation’s capital will be more partisan over the coming year. That's down from 58% a month ago and the first time that number has fallen into the 40s since the first two months of the Obama presidency.

Twenty-seven percent (27%) now believe there will be more cooperation between the political parties in Washington over the next year, up 10 points from a month ago and the highest level of optimism since June 2009. Twenty-five percent (25%) of voters are not sure how things will play out. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

Right after the last national elections in November 2008 when Obama was elected president, voters were much more closely divided: 45% expected more partisanship in Washington, while 44% expected more cooperation. 

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The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on November 7-8, 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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