Just 32% See Democrats' Agenda As Mainstream

Fewer than half the nation’s voters believe the congressional agenda of either major party is in the political mainstream.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows that just 32% describe the agenda of Democrats in Congress as mainstream. Most (53%) say it is more accurate to describe that agenda as extreme, down slightly from 57% last August. Another 15% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Forty percent (40%) view the congressional Republican agenda as extreme, while the same number (40%) sees it as mainstream. Another 20% are not sure. The number who see the Republican agenda as mainstream is down from 42% in January and 45% in August. 

The latest survey also finds that 42% of voters believe that the average Republican in Congress is more conservative than they are, while 59% believe the average Democrat is more liberal. That’s little changed from recent surveys.

Voters have more confidence now that Republicans rather than Democrats have a plan for the future, and they’re almost evenly divided over whether either political party is really the party of the American people. 

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 28-March 1, 2011 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.