Republicans sour on presidential election process: poll

Driven by a drop among Republicans, just three in 10 Americans now say the presidential election process is working as it should, according to polling released Friday.

Thirty percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said the way the presidential election process is being conducted makes them feel it’s working as it should, according to the Gallup poll. That’s down from 46 percent in January and 41 percent last month.

Democrats and Democratic leaners, meanwhile, have mostly held steady. Thirty-two percent said the process is working as it should, up from 29 percent last month and even with where things stood in January.

Among adults overall, 30 percent said the process is working as it should, down from 33 percent in February and 37 percent in January.

More than two-thirds, 68 percent, still said there is a candidate in the race they think would make a good president. That includes 63 percent of the people who said the process isn’t working.

Gallup’s Frank Newport wrote that it’s unclear from the data if people are reacting to what’s going on in their party’s nomination process, or the other party, or both.

But he also pointed to a recent CBS News/New York Times survey which found that 60 percent of Republican voters said the GOP presidential election campaign has made them feel mostly embarrassed by the party, rather than mostly proud. Meanwhile, 13 percent of Democrats said the same of their own party’s campaign.

“These findings support the hypothesis that Republicans’ views that the campaign is not working properly are being driven by their negative views of the candidates’ campaigns, most likely related to Trump,” Mr. Newport wrote. “Republican establishment leaders’ attempt to prevent Trump from getting the GOP nomination may be adding to rank-and-file Republicans’ views that the process is not working, either because they support or because they oppose these efforts.”

Despite the dour mood among some Republicans in the poll, voters are still turning out in record numbers in GOP primaries and caucuses this year. GOP front-runner Donald Trump says that’s evidence of the enthusiasm his campaign is generating.