The first federal government shutdown in 17 years wreaked havoc over the GOP brand last month, sinking Republican approval and boosting Democrats ahead of the 2014 mid-term elections.
A new Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday showed Democratic momentum all but reversed amid the embarassing fiasco that has been the Obamacare rollout, with both parties now tied on the generic ballot at 39 percent. As a measure of the public’s record-low disapproval of Congress, another 23 percent of registered voters said they would prefer another candidate or abstain entirely.
The survey signals a dramatic reversal in the aftermath of the shutdown fight, forced by Republicans in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act, when Democrats held a 9 percentage point (NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey) and 8 percentage point (CNN survey) lead over Republicans on the generic ballot.
In even more bad news for Democrats, the same Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday afternoon recorded perhaps the worst job approval numbers of Barack Obama’s presidency — with 54 percent saying they disapproved of his job handling, while just 39 percent said they approved.
