Planned Parenthood and the National Rifle Association may both be the targets of protests and heated rhetoric, but they are still viewed more favorably than the candidates running for president on both sides of the aisle.
In a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, Planned Parenthood was rated positively by 45 percent of those surveyed, while 30 percent said they viewed the organization negatively.
The NRA got a positive rating from 43 percent of respondents and a negative rating from 32 percent.
Those net favorability ratings are higher than those tallied for major 2016 candidates like Hillary Clinton (37 percent positive/ 48 percent negative), Scott Walker (19 percent positive/ 20 percent negative), Jeb Bush (26 percent positive/40 percent negative) and Donald Trump (26 percent positive/56 percent negative).
The survey comes as Planned Parenthood has been under intense scrutiny after an anti-abortion group released a series of undercover videos that picture Planned Parenthood officials detailing how they facilitate the use of tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research purposes. The NRA is perennially in the spotlight after mass shootings like the July 24 attack in a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Unsurprisingly, there is a sharp partisan divide in how both organizations are rated.
Among Republicans, the NRA is viewed positively by 63 percent and viewed negatively by just nine percent. That’s compared to just 26 percent of Democrats with a positive assessment of the gun rights group. Fifty-seven percent of Democrats give the NRA a negative rating.
Those figures are flipped for Planned Parenthood, which is viewed positively by 69 percent of Democrats and just 23 percent of Republicans. A majority of Republicans – 54 percent – say they view Planned Parenthood negatively.
