Poll: More blame Republicans for government shutdown

Poll: More blame Republicans for government shutdown
By Jonathan Easley - 09-30-13 07:30 AM ET

Republicans will bear most of the blame for a government shutdown, according to CNN-ORC poll released Monday morning.

The survey found that 46 percent of respondents would blame Republicans for a shutdown, against 36 percent who said President Obama would be to blame. Still, that’s a closer divide than the same poll found earlier in the month, when 51 percent blamed Republicans and 33 percent blamed Obama.

House Republicans approved a spending bill early Sunday that delays ObamaCare by a year. Senate Democrats, who have repeatedly said they will not pass a resolution that attempts to dismantle the president’s signature healthcare law, will likely vote the bill down on Monday.

If a funding resolution is not passed on Monday, the government will shut down at midnight.

The CNN-ORC survey also asked if each player in the shutdown drama was acting like a responsible adult or like a spoiled child. Republicans faired the worst, with 69 percent saying they were behaving like spoiled children, followed by Congressional Democrats at 58 percent , and Obama at 47 percent. 

The looming shutdown is wildly unpopular with the public – 68 percent said it would be bad for the country, and 60 percent said it was more important to keep the government running than to make changes to ObamaCare.

The CNN-ORC poll of 803 adults was conducted between Friday and Sunday and has a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.