PUBLIC OPINION > Romney Shouldn't Have a Role in Obama's Second Term

Now that the cards have fallen, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is free to pursue another spot on the political field. According to Obama, Romney might have a chance to "work together" with the President, and the two are reportedly meeting Thursday for lunch to talk about it. But should Romney even get involved? The L.A. Times was curious to see whether or not the public wants Romney to work with Obama. Here's how the public voted.


Not many people actually want to see Romney get involved with the Obama administration. However, there was no one big reason why people voted one way or the other. Respondents had a variety of opinions, from "Obama needs all the help he can get" to "Romney could get Obama his tea," and from "let Obama fend for himself" to "Romney lost for a reason." The only constant seemed to be negativity. Tensions were high during the election, so perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise.

Not Even Conservatives Condone

We expected liberals to be against the idea, but we were surprised to find that conservatives weren't far off. Fewer than half wanted to see Romney involved in the Obama administration. This is probably the result of a couple of things. First, as we mentioned, there's still some unwillingness to work together left over from the election. Second, Romney had a lot of conservative critics in the first place.

Big Money Still Wants Mitt

Unlike the conservative demographic, voters who make $100,000 a year or more were largely supportive of the idea. A whopping 80% want to see Mitt get involved with Obama. Conservative policies are typically more popular with the well-off because conservative policies oppose redistribution, so they would naturally have more incentive to move past the negativity.

Women Don't Want to See It

Oddly enough, gender seemed to correlate as well. In past surveys, we found that women were more likely than men to support Obama, and therefore less likely to support Romney, so that could be part of it. However, the difference between men and women (16%) was even greater than the difference between liberals and conservatives (11%).

If you'd like to vote on this question, dig deeper into the demographics, or engage in existing discussion about the topic, visit the original L.A. Times poll about Obama and Romney. We'd love to hear from you!