Poll: McCain is now more popular with Democrats than GOP

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has a favorability rating of 71 percent with Democrats after his vote to kill the Senate’s ObamaCare repeal bill.

McCain, who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer, scored just a 51 percent rating among Republicans, 20 fewer points than he earned from Democrats in a new Gallup poll Monday. His overall favorability rating comes in at 58 percent.

Only one other politician has earned a significantly higher favorability rating from an opposing political party in a Gallup poll: former Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), who earned high marks from Republicans in 2006 over his support of the war in Iraq while Democrats disapproved of the move.

{mosads}McCain made a surprise return to the Senate last month after his cancer diagnosis to participate in the Senate’s effort to repeal ObamaCare. In the end, he cast the decisive vote that stopped the effort in its tracks.

McCain’s favorability among Democrats has shot up since August 2015, when he had a 49 percent rating from the group. Sixty-one percent of Republicans viewed their party’s former presidential nominee favorably at the time.

Gallup surveyed 1,017 adult Americans over the phone from Aug. 2-6 and the poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.