TO: Interested Parties FROM: Alex Lundry, TargetPoint Consulting DATE: September 26, 2013 RE: National Poll

Results

TargetPoint Consulting conducted a national survey of 800 registered voters September 13-18, 2013 on attitudes towards the upcoming legislative debates over the continuing resolution and the debt ceiling. The margin of error for the survey is +/- 3.5%. The survey was conducted on behalf of Ending Spending (www.EndingSpending.com) and American Action Forum (www.AmericanActionForum.org). OVERALL TAKEAWAY A frustrated electorate is desperate for change. They are disappointed with the President. They are deeply unhappy with Obamacare, and a majority welcome a delay of the individual mandate. They are unhappy with federal spending, and a majority are looking for meaningful tradeoffs in exchange for raising the debt ceiling in other words, the American people want President Obama to negotiate with Congress in order to find a path forward on the national debt. Despite all this, they are reluctant to embrace a government shutdown. KEY FINDINGS 1. AN OPPORTUNITY: Obama is badly bruised. The President's numbers aren't strong, with an underwater approval rating (43% approve, 49% disapprove), and a generic congressional ballot that has Republicans ahead by 4 points (40% GOP, 36% DEM). 2. READY FOR A DELAY: Obamas health care plan is especially beat up. A majority oppose the Presidents signature legislation 39% support and 55% oppose. Opposition is intense with 44% of Americans strongly disapproving of the law. Moreover, a majority support delay: 55% of registered voters support a one year delay of the individual mandate. This is with specific references to the delay in the employer mandate and exemptions various organizations have received for different parts of the law. Only 35% oppose a one year delay of Obamacare. 3. NO CLEAN DEBT LIMIT: There is intense opposition to raising the debt ceiling. A hefty majority is opposed to increasing the debt ceiling: on a clean favor/oppose question on raising the debt ceiling, a stunning 65% - nearly two thirds of registered voters oppose raising it. Only 27% favor it for net score of 37. Reinforcing this point, nearly half of voters (48%) STRONGLY oppose raising the debt ceiling. Among Independents the numbers are even stronger: 70% opposed (56% strongly) and 26% favor.

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4. PRESIDENT SHOULD NEGOTIATE: Despite this opposition, a majority of voters want to use this opportunity to negotiate over related government policies. 52% of registered voters would rather see negotiation over the debt ceiling than a straight up or down vote (which only 38% want).

5. POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS: Popular policy changes in exchange for a debt-limit increase. Indeed, there are a number of related government policies that a majority would approve of as a meaningful tradeoff in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Here are five items that at least 54% of Americans agree would be good tradeoffs in exchange for increasing the debt limit: 73% - Ease Americas dependence upon Mideast oil, lower the cost of gasoline and create jobs for American workers by building the Keystone Oil Pipeline. 64% - Reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program also known as SNAP or food stamps by eliminating inefficiencies and revisiting eligibility standards.

57% - Eliminate certain tax breaks for people and businesses as part of tax code reform. 55% - Keep Medicare from going broke by means-testing premiums and benefits. 54% - Delay implementation of Obamacare in order to limit the consequences of this harmful law.

6. DEFUND ALMOST WORKS, BUT NO SHUTDOWN: We can extract some underlying truths from the survey data we collected on the continuing resolution 1) There is strong reluctance to let the government pass a business -as-usual bill, and 2) Obamacare opposition is powerful enough to move numbers when we attach it to other items, but 3) for a majority of voters actually shutting down the government is a bridge too far. We walked respondents through a number of ballots related to the continuing resolution, each building upon another in order to isolate the effect of additional information. Fewer than half of registered voters support a passing a clean continuing resolution (48% favor, 40% oppose) this echoes the frustration we heard in other focus groups where participants expressed exasperation over government funding and were reluctant to let it keep operating in "business as usual" mode. This 8-point advantage grows to a 10-point advantage when we add defunding of Obamacare to the mix (51% support passing a CR with a defunding of Obamacare, 41% oppose it). However, things change RADICALLY when we mention the word shutdown: informing them that this could cause the government to shutdown, opposition grows to the majority position with 51% opposing a CR that defunds Obamacare, 32% favoring it.