Last week it was Rasmussen, this week it’s Gallup: Congressional Approval Hits Record-Low 14%
Congress’ job approval rating has dropped five percentage points over the past month, from 19% in June to 14% in July, making the current reading the lowest congressional job approval rating in the 34-year Gallup Poll history of asking the question.
The American people are in a historically cantankerous mood, it would seem:
the 14% approval rating is extraordinary. Approval of Congress has fallen below 20% only six times in the 34 years Gallup has measured it. Including the latest reading, four of those have come in the past year: in July, June, and May 2008, and in August 2007. The two additional readings were from March 1992 (in the midst of the House bank check-kiting scandal) and June 1979 (during an energy crisis that resulted in surging gas prices and long gas lines), when either 18% or 19% of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing.
The numbers clearly show widespread dissatisfaction with the basic direction of the country. While Republican voters may think that this means that there is a good deal of electoral wrath out there to go around (the Dems run the Congress, after all), voters can’t vote against Congress (and they tend to like their own Representatives and Senators, even as they love to loathe the collective whole on Capitol Hill). What they can do is collectively respond to the party in the White House, and as such, these types of numbers are not good news for John McCain.
Indeed, it is quite likely that the Democrats will increase their majority in both houses despite these numbers.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
[...] Doctor Steven Taylor (PoliBlog™): “… While Republican voters may think that this means that there is a good deal of electoral wrath out there to go around (the Dems run the Congress, after all), voters can’t vote against Congress (and they tend to like their own Representatives and Senators, even as they love to loathe the collective whole on Capitol Hill). What they can do is collectively respond to the party in the White House, and as such, these types of numbers are not good news for John McCain. …” [...]
July 16th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
i think you’re right. what will be interesting, however, is how the nation will respond with all-dem governance. because it seems to me that lots of the problems the nation is facing are really beyond a quick (or partisan-favoring) solution.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I agree.
I suspect that there will be a brief honeymoon should Obama win and expectations will be high and then the Great Disappointment will set in.