Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) brushed off a new poll Monday that suggests President Obama's healthcare law is hurting his reelection chances.
"Give me one or two follow-up questions, I'll turn that poll for you," Durbin said Monday on MSNBC. "When I say to people, 'Do you think as a family you would like to keep your child, fresh out of college, looking for a job, on your family's health insurance plan?' Of course."
Durbin was responding to a question from MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski, who cited a
Gallup/USA Today poll that found that of those surveyed, 30 percent say they are less likely to vote for President Obama because of the healthcare law, while 15 percent say they are more likely to vote for him due to the legislation.
A separate
Gallup Poll also released on Monday found that 72 percent of Americans view the individual mandate in the healthcare legislation as unconstitutional while 20 percent say it's constitutional. Broken down by party affiliation, 56 percent of Democrats said it was unconstitutional while 37 percent said it is constitutional. Meanwhile, 94 percent of Republicans said the mandate is unconstitutional with just 6 percent finding it constitutional.
On the 2012 election, Durbin said a brokered GOP convention was unlikely. Some political observers have mentioned a long-shot possibility of a brokered convention as a number of Republican candidates have taken turns surging to the head of the GOP field, overtaking presumptive nominee Mitt Romney. Recently, a number of polls have found Romney in a close race nationally and in key battleground states with Rick Santorum.
A recent
Gallup Poll found Romney overtaking Santorum nationally, 31 percent to 29.
"It's not likely to happen, and in this day and age, it's not likely when you consider the limited amount of time that would be left, the amount of money that needs to be raised, the organization that needs to be put together. But you can tell there's a roiling in the ranks of Republicans," Durbin said. "They don't think they've found the candidate yet that could defeat President Obama."
