CNN’s Harry Enten Says Polls Are on Democrats’ Side Amid Shutdown Despite Republicans Acting ‘Like They’re Cock of the Walk’
CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten accused Republicans of “strutting around like they’re cock of the walk” despite polling favoring Democrats amid the partial government shutdown.
Enten joined CNN anchor Sara Sidner on Friday morning to break down polling on the shutdown, and he caught Sidner by surprise with his “cock of the walk” comparison.
“I think there are a lot of Republicans out there right now strutting around thinking that they’re cock of the walk,” Enten said.
“This is a morning show, Harry!” Sidner warned. “Come on. Keep it clean.”
“We’ll try and keep it clean, but shutdowns just get me so excited. Republicans out there thinking they’re cock of the walk, but here’s the thing to keep in mind,” Enten said as he pulled up polling on which party Americans are blaming for the failure to pass a funding bill.
According to polling from The New York Times, Marist, and The Washington Post, people are blaming Republicans for the shutdown more than Democrats by seven, 12, and 17 points, respectively.
“When you look at the data, what you’re actually seeing is that more Americans are blaming Republicans than Democrats, which I think really goes against the conventional wisdom because a lot of folks are saying, hey, Democrats are so divided. But at this particular point, Americans are placing the blame on the Republican shoulders, at least the plurality of them are,” Enten said.
Enten noted that past aggregate polling also showed Republicans being blamed more than Democrats for government shutdowns in 1996, 2013, and 2019.
“What we see is that more Americans are likely to blame Republicans than Democrats, which again, it’s why the polling right now doesn’t exactly strike me as surprising,” he said. “Despite the fact that Democrats might be messy, Republicans are the ones who are getting more blame because that is what has happened, at least historically speaking.”
Watch above via CNN.
