Gallup: More GOP Voters Want One-Party Control of Presidency, Congress

Suggesting GOP voters may be frustrated with government gridlock in Washington, a new poll finds Republicans are decidedly more open this year to having one party control both the president and Congress.

In the Gallup poll released Monday, 40 percent of Republicans say it's better for one party to run both branches, an increase over the 24 percent who said so last year.

"Given Americans' frustrations with the way the government in Washington is operating – which to a large degree is a function of having divided government – one might expect Americans to be a little more open to having one party control both the president and Congress," Gallup notes, adding voters' views, however, are "complex."

The poll also notes "Republicans may be optimistic about their chances of electing a Republican president, particularly since Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has been weakened by the email server controversy."

The poll finds 26 percent of Republican voters think it's better to have split control; 30 percent say it doesn't make any difference.

Democrat voters' opinions on the issue, on the other hand, remain mostly unchanged from 2014, with 43 percent saying it's better that one party controls both branches – 47 percent said the same last year – and 17 percent saying split control is best. The poll finds 35 percent of Democrats think is makes no difference.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

According to Gallup, American voters' opinions "to a large degree … are influenced by partisans' desire to maximize their favored party's power in the current political environment."

"But in addition to those immediate and practical political desires, many Americans, particularly independents, seem to have normative concerns about giving one party too much power."

Gallup concludes that attitude would explain why recent eras of one-party government, including in 1993-1994 during the Clinton administration, from 2002-2006 during the Bush administration and in 2009-2010 in the Obama administration, were so brief.

"Once the incumbent president in those eras became unpopular, voters gave control of one or both houses of Congress to the opposition party in the next midterm election," the pollsters noted.

In other findings:

• Forty-five percent of Independents believe the one-party control makes no difference, up from 39 percent last year.
• The percentage of all Americans preferring divided government has decreased since 2014, from 28 percent to 24 percent. 
• "No difference" remains the most common response, "as it typically has been," according to Gallup, at 38 percent.