Support for divided government, where one party controls the White House and another controls Congress, is at its lowest level in 15 years, according to Gallup polling released Wednesday.
Twenty percent of Americans said it’s best to have a president from one political party and Congress controlled by another, compared to 36 percent who favor one party controlling both the presidency and Congress and 36 percent who say it doesn’t make a difference how political power is allocated.
The 20 percent figure in favor of divided government is the lowest in Gallup polling since 2002, and the 36 percent favoring single-party control of both the White House and Congress approaches the high of 38 percent from four years ago.
“This year, relatively few Democrats or Republicans wish for divided government,” Gallup’s Art Swift wrote. “In addition to each group possibly feeling optimistic about their party’s chances in the election, another reason so few support divided government could be a desire to overcome political gridlock and pass legislation.”
“In any case, Americans have no clear preference for whether the same party should control both political branches or whether it makes no difference,” he wrote.
Perhaps not surprisingly, party preferences on the issue can depend on who’s in power. In 2004, when President George W. Bush was in the White House, 44 percent of GOP voters said they favored single-party control, compared to 28 percent of Democrats.
In 2012, when President Obama was running for re-election, 49 percent of Democrats said they preferred single-party control, compared to 36 percent of Republicans.
Most recently, Republicans controlled the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate from 2003-2007, while Democrats had a lock on the White House and Congress from 2009-2011.
With Mr. Obama in office, Republicans took back control of the U.S. House following the 2010 midterm elections and regained control of the U.S. Senate after the 2014 midterm elections.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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