He oversees polling and society trend data for Ipsos Public Affairs and joins us today with new data on how Americans are viewing the ongoing government shutdown in day 13 now.
Cliff Young, what did you find?
Who are Americans blaming for the impasse that we continue to find ourselves in?
Well, it's really a pox on all their houses, right?
Whether it be Donald Trump, whether it be the Republicans, whether it be the Democrats, about two-thirds of Americans say each of them is responsible or have a large degree of responsibility for the shutdown.
Now, you know, if we were to force it, we were to force choice that we were to force Americans or respondents to rank order, we'd find that the Republicans are a little bit more responsible than Democrats.
But overall, there's a lot of large degree of consternation and critique of what's going on today.
And we're in a moment right now of heightened uncertainty, lots of trepidation about what's going to happen, especially with tariffs, looking at inflation, the pocketbooks, right?
This all sort of goes into this overall worry.
About 49% of Americans are worried that their benefits like Social Security will be stopped or discontinued for a time.
And that's at historic levels, right?
We found similar numbers in the past when we've had shutdowns.
So shutdowns writ large kind of reinforce Americans' sense of uncertainty and fear about the present.
I would think politically speaking, right, the side that really feels like they're being pressured, especially politically from a public opinion perspective, might cave a bit or might seed a bit.
We also have numbers on a relative degree of worry.
If those worry numbers go up, kind of whether those support numbers go down.
Typically, there's not much support for government shutdown.
Those are extreme sort of groups and individuals that actually support it.
But we'll be looking at relative optimism on the one hand and to what extent responsibility shifts over time.
Otherwise, phone numbers for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, as usual.
We've got Cliff Young for about another 20 minutes here this morning.
We just finished watching the president's speech at the Knesset.
Probably a bit too early for you to have polling numbers on that.
But as somebody who studies public opinion, what are you going to be asking people in the wake of this speech, in the wake of this ceasefire and attempted peace deal?
It's one of those events which we can say a priori before knowing anything else.
It is qualitatively different than your average sort of a foreign policy event, right?
The question is what impact will it have?
Now, some of the questions we're going to ask will be questions around the event itself, favorability towards it, feelings towards it, whether they think there's a long-term solution, kind of like that, let's say, cluster of questions.
We'll also be looking at his numbers.
Does it improve President Trump's numbers, his approval numbers over time?
During his 65-minute address to the Knesset, President Trump talked about a lot of different things, but he mentioned the war in Ukraine and saying on Russian and the Ukrainian war, we'll get a deal done.
Does his ability to make progress here, a ceasefire, and now a potential path to a full-on peace deal when it comes to Gaza and Israel, do you think that will impact public sentiment for the ability to end a different war, Ukraine and Russia?
Yeah, I think that there's a potential positive halo effect.
He seems like he's in his element when he's talking about deals.
He feels very comfortable.
He was comfortable speaking about it.
He knows how to do it, at least in a different context.
He had good effect in this specific case.
Again, it would be a significant event to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.
But then again, foreign policy, national security are not the number one issue or number two or even number three issues here in the United States today.
Americans are worried about domestic issues.
So while on the margins I could see a positive impact, he reinforces maybe his image as a deal maker, as a leader.
That doesn't necessarily translate into significantly higher approval ratings, at least at this point looking forward.
A lot more to dig into from the numbers, but let me try to get you some calls in or so with you.
This is Skip out of Michigan, Republican.
You're on with Cliff Young of Ipsos.
unidentified
Sir, Mr. Young, I'd like to know what program you're using in polling.
If you're going to be taking many calls or anything out of New York or California or the East, it's going to be a lot different from the heartland, from the Midwest.
I'd like to know it because you can hear through this East Band how partisan the Democrats are.
They would hate Trump on a sunny day saying we don't like sun.
And so that means we include New York, California, Florida, Texas, and all the states in between.
Different polling firms use different ways of getting to people.
Some telephone, some knock on the door.
In our case at Ipsos, our primary methodology is first knocking on the door, sending snail mail, and recruiting you to a panel and talking with you over time.
We know where you live.
In other words, you're not a bot, right?
And that's super important.
That's important for the robustness and quality of the information.
But all pollsters want a representative sample of the population, making sure we have, you know, the correct number of Democrats, the correct number of Republicans, and the correct number of all those in between.
Well, first and foremost, Americans are afraid or worried about crime, right?
I'm not worried about crime in my city, but I'm worried about crime in your city.
So it's a proximity issue.
The closer I am to something, the less I'm worried.
So if I'm living far away from big cities, I think big cities are much more dangerous than they actually are.
And so we have to keep that in mind, right?
There's this proximity issue.
Overall, Americans are not in favor of the deployment of National Guard troops.
If you look at, independent of how we ask the question, it varies.
Support varies from 20% to 30% or so.
Now, when you peel away the onion and you look at party, like party identification or party persuasion, a super majority of Republicans are in favor of it, and only a slight minority of Democrats.
So really, it's a tale of two worlds, a tale of two Americas, but ultimately kind of broad-based fear of crime.
I mean, there are questions that we've repeated over the last 70 years, that is the polling industry, exactly referring to your congressman or woman versus the other.
I always love my congressperson, always.
They're awesome.
I know them.
They live down the street.
You know, John or Jane was a baker before they became a congressperson, right?
To Fred in New Orleans, this is the Republican line.
Fred, you're on with Cliff Young.
unidentified
Yes, good morning, Clever.
Since it appears that the crux of this whole shutdown issue is regular order and the Congress passing 12 appropriations bills.
And this happens year in and year out.
Is there any recommendations or any thoughts that you might have that would incentivize Congress to get these appropriations bills done by October 1st so that there is no possibility of a shutdown?
The Washington Post editorial board last week made the point that they didn't think shutdowns were painful enough that the incentives aren't there for members of Congress to avoid a shutdown, so therefore it becomes a political tool that they've made sure that Social Security checks still go out.
We've found a way to pay military paychecks this month.
Many of the essential functions go on, and so relatively few Americans are actually impacted by a shutdown.
Have you found, in terms of that polling about people being impacted by the shutdown, that those numbers are increasing and you expect them to increase as we go for a few more days or weeks?
Yeah, I don't think they're, you know, in the past, we found basically that they were flatlined over the course of time.
Relative fear, the same level, relative optimism, the same level.
Who they blame basically stays the same.
Ultimately, this is an issue that worries people.
It's one more layer of worry, but they are focused on so many other things than this issue specifically that probably won't be a lot of pain felt by politicians.
And definitely, it's a difficult thing to run on when you have other more important things to run on, like immigration or making ends meet, as just two examples.
We and others have pulled on them over the course of time.
I have to understand that.
When we think of the ACA, Obamacare, as, let's say, a grand consensus, or what I mean by that is the point where public opinion agreed, where you got a majority of individuals.
It was in this option, the option of having private sector insurance companies, insurance market.
That's what Americans were willing to tolerate.
And by the way, the polling hasn't changed much since then.
So there's not a lot of support for basically a publicly run healthcare system.
There isn't much support for just having it completely open, free, and fair, laissez-faire, let's say.
It's something in the middle, and obviously there's externalities or negative consequences any way you organize yourself.
I think that this specific back and forth with China is a lot of noise.
It doesn't mean they're not paying attention.
But generally speaking, they're worried.
They see tariffs as inflationary in nature.
And we've already seen behavior being sort of curbed, right?
They're stockpiling.
People are downsizing a bit at the household level.
And so there's this fear.
And when you talk to economists, whether at associations or banks, they're saying the real impact, we should wait for Q4 and the beginning of next year.
But overall, from a public opinion standpoint, people are worried about this.
Well, it's just when you look at the data, it's amazing, especially when you're looking at immigration or looking at crime as just the government shutdown.
It's as if we live in two different worlds.
We have the Democratic world, we have the Republican world that see the issues as completely different.
And I think this caller just represents the red thread, the Republican thread of that view.
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country.
Maryland And Oklahoma Governors Discuss Peace00:01:15
unidentified
Coming up Tuesday morning, we'll talk with Elise Labitt, founder of the Cosmopolitics Substack newsletter, about peace efforts in Gaza and President Trump's role.
Then Joel Payne with the nonprofit group Move On covers the government shutdown and the No Kings protests.
And former Arizona Republican Congressman J.D. Hayworth with the Pharmaceutical Reform Alliance talks about efforts by the White House to reduce the cost of prescription drugs.
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Friday, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire, Maryland Democratic Governor Wes Moore and Oklahoma Republican Governor Kevin Stitt sit down together with host Dasha Burns.
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