House Speaker John Boehner’s resignation announcement came as a shock to many, but recent polls show that it also provoked sighs of relief from GOP primary voters, some of whom think Boehner’s planned October resignation is not soon enough.
According to a poll from The Wall Street Journal, 72 percent of Republican primary voters are dissatisfied with Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and 36 percent of those polled said they would prefer to have Boehner and McConnell removed from leadership immediately.
Dissatisfaction with Boehner and Republican leaders is not a new phenomenon.
A Fox News poll conducted Sept. 20-22, before Boehner’s announcement, reported that 66 percent of GOP primary voters polled said they did not believe that Republicans in Congress had done all they could do to “block or reverse Barack Obama’s agenda.”
Of those 66 percent, 28 percent said they believe that this is because the Republicans “didn’t really want to block Obama’s agenda.” A further 38 percent said they believe that it was because the Republicans “would rather fight each other” than fight Obama’s agenda.
While many GOP members are happy about Boehner’s resignation, his leaving may not be a sign of coming unification for the party.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said in an interview with CNN that Boehner’s resignation would likely lead to further division and only encourage some GOP members of Congress in their crusade against the establishment.
“I think we need John Boehner as speaker,” King said to CNN. “I thought he did an outstanding job but he was treated very badly by people in our own party. He genuinely thought, I guess, that it would be better for the party if somehow if he left there wouldn’t be as much division. I disagree. I think it’s like throwing raw meat to some of these people.”
Though Boehner is set to resign from his position, he has not resigned himself to silence on the matter of those in the conservative ranks who vocally expressed their displeasure with his leadership and even called for his resignation.
“The Bible says beware of false prophets,” Boehner told CBS. “And there are people out there, you know, spreading noise about how much can get done. I mean this whole notion that we’re going to shut down the government to get rid of Obamacare in 2013—this plan never had a chance.”