The Hill Poll: Supercommittee will fail, say voters

A large majority of likely voters have little confidence that Congress’s supercommittee can produce a deal to reduce the federal deficit, and they blame each side almost equally for the impasse.

Seventy-five percent of likely voters in The Hill Poll said they were not very or not at all confident that a deal will be produced. Forty-four percent said they were not very confident, while 31 percent said they are not at all confident.

The bipartisan supercommittee is charged with producing a plan to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion by Nov. 23, just nine days from now. If the panel cannot come to an agreement by that date, its failure will trigger cuts that neither party wants to take effect.

{mosads}Forty-six percent of likely voters said they would blame President Obama and congressional Democrats if a deal is not reached, while 45 percent said they would blame Republicans, a difference well within the poll’s 3-point error margin.

Those numbers indicate that Obama is failing to make decisive gains by shifting toward a strategy of blaming a “do-nothing Congress” for a lack of progress.

In fact, independents are significantly more likely to blame Obama than Republicans, with half saying it would be Obama’s fault if a deal is not reached while 38 percent would blame Republicans.

The Hill Poll was conducted by Pulse Opinion Research on Nov. 10, 2011, and surveyed 1,000 likely voters. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Click here to view data from The Hill Poll.