Poll Proves DC Elites Totally Out of Touch With Reality of Good, Hard-Workin' 'Mericans…
Politico has a poll out that compares responses from real Americans (non-DC "elites") and fake Americans (DC elites). The results include:
Only 27 percent [of 1,011 adults polled nationwide] believe the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 61 percent who think the nation is on the wrong track. Likewise, when asked whether the national economy is heading down the right or wrong track, just 24 percent chose the right track, compared with65 percent for the wrong track.
Yet among the 227 Washington elites polled, more think the country is on the right track, 49 percent, than the wrong track, 45 percent. On the economy, 44 percent of elites think the country is on the right track, compared with 46 percent who believe it is not.
To qualify as a DC elite, you had to live in the DC area, pull in $75,000 or more a year, have a college degree or more, and work in some sort of political or public policy career. There are areas of overlap (health care) but mostly divergent views on the people, policies, and topics in play.
Full poll results here (pdf).
In a related story at Politico, Jim Vandehei and Zachary Abramson suggest one reason for the divergence is that DC, now the country's wealthiest metro region, is a boomtown compared to the rest of the country.
In May, unemployment in metro Washington hit 6 percent — an uptick from April's rate for the area but well below the national average of 9.5 percent and far milder than the May rates of the shattered manufacturing towns of the Midwest, including Flint, Mich. (at 14.7 percent), Elkhart, Ind. (at 13.7 percent) and Rockford, Ill. (at 13.9 percent).