http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/05/pollster-pat-caddell-one-third-of-gop-hanging-by-a-thread-from-bolting/by Robert Wilde 5 Jan 2015Washington, DC
Fox News contributor and Democratic pollster Pat Caddell told Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that up to one-third of Republicans are ready to call it quits as members of the GOP.
“The alienation among Republican voters is so high,” says Caddell, that conservatively “a quarter to one-third of the Republican party are hanging by a thread from bolting.” Caddell argues that GOP voters’ attitudes are “so anti-establishment,” and they give Republican leadership poor ratings.
The revelation comes on the heels of polling data supervised by Caddell Associates and reported on Friday by Breitbart News that a stupefying 60% of Republicans who voted in the November elections either definitely or probably want someone other than Ohio Congressman John Boehner to be the Speaker of the House.
Caddell, who sharpened his teeth as a political consultant and pollster for President Jimmy Carter in 1976, has developed a reputation for being a straight shooting analyst, often criticized by his own party for predicting negative outcomes for Democrats.
His latest poll shows that Republican voters are reaching a tipping point and may have had enough of GOP lawmakers’ feckless leadership and constant submission to President Obama’s policies.
A frequent guest on the Breitbart News Sunday Sirius XM Patriot radio program on channel 125, Caddell said that he will be releasing a new survey on Monday of 600 Republican identifiers or independents who voted Republican in November. In what Caddell refers to as a “stunner,” only 16% want “both” Boehner and imminent Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to be their leaders.
Moreover, according to the survey, two-thirds agreed with the statement that “John Boehner has been ineffective in opposing Obama.”
Another stunner for Caddell was when voters were asked, “Is John Boehner for average Americans in his heart, rather than for special interests?” Only 44% said yes, and 43% said no. “We’re talking about the base. These are not independents that are leaning Democrat, and there are no Democrats in the survey,” the pollster noted in astonishment.
Breitbart’s Chairman asked Caddell “does the math show you that there could be an uprising and could the GOP go the way of the Whig Party?” (The Whigs elected two presidents in the mid 19th century, and at one time, claimed Abraham Lincoln as a member, but quickly disappeared from the political landscape over slavery issues.)
Caddell answered by reminding Bannon that the estimate that one-quarter to one-third are hanging on by a thread is a conservative one. He explained:
The GOP leadership, the lawyers, the lobbyists, the consultant class of the Republican party, and all the big donors don’t understand that these people are angry. … They are saying that John Boehner doesn’t care about them, and all he cares about is the special interests. I’ve never seen anything like this in the base of a party. And that is why the analogy to the Whigs is not so far-fetched.
