Those numbers looked strange to me, so I did a search. Here's Gallup's numbers for the same question for this month:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/123161/Republican-Party-Image-Improves-Trails-Democrats.aspxFavorable ratings of the Republican Party, by region:
East 37
Midwest 42
South 44
West 37
That seems more accurate given party registrations. It wouldn't surprise me to see overall GOP favorability in the East at, say, 30% in some polls, but 7% is ridiculous. Not ridiculous for Manhattan, for example, but ridiculous for the whole region, which includes upstate NY and central PA, after all. Rick Santorum didn't lose 85%-15%.
Fredericks' posting comes from a Washington Monthly columnist's (wrong) interpretation of a Research 2000 poll for DailyKOS. The poll was actually about Congressional Republicans, not the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is more popular in the South, but not that much more. Something's wrong when polls in the same week are so far apart, and when the regions are that far off.
I apologize for my wonkery, but analyzing data is a good bit of what I get paid for.