Congressional Approval Drops To An Absolutely Abysmal 6%

I thought when most polls were showing congressional approval at 8% or 9% that it couldn't get any worse than that. I was wrong. A new Public Policy Polling survey (conducted between October 29th and 31st of 649 nationwide voters, with a margin of error of 3.8 points) shows the approval of the current "do-nothing" Congress has dipped down to an abysmal 6%.

The chart above shows the demographic breakdown of congressional approval, and the lack of approval cuts across all groups. Only two groups show a double-digit level of approval, voters between 18 & 29 with 14% approval and seniors over 65 with 11% approval -- and neither of those numbers is anything to brag about. The general public is clearly disgusted with the current Congress and its inability to accomplish anything -- and shutting down the government just added to that disgust.

Frankly, I would feel very uneasy if I was a congressperson of either party. As the charts below show, voters are not even happy with their own congressperson. About 45% say they don't approve of the job their own congressperson is doing, while 41% approves and the rest don't know what the hell to think. Independents seem to be particularly angry at their own representative, with 59% disapproving and only 31% approving.

But there are signs that the Republicans should be the ones to worry the most. While Democrats are fairly happy with their representatives (with approval being 11 points higher than disapproval), the Republicans are evenly split on approval and disapproval of their representatives (with 41% feeling each way). And when you look at the general public's feeling toward both parties, the Democrats clearly come out ahead. Approval of congressional Democrats is 17 points higher than that of Republicans, while disapproval of congressional Republicans is 16 points higher than that of Democrats.

It should be no surprise then that the figures for a generic congressional election currently favors the Democrats (who only need 17 seats more to flip the House over to their control). It's still early, and there's time for the Republicans to rehabilitate their image -- but they won't do that by trying to move farther to the right for the primaries, and then trying to act like a moderate next summer. The public is tired of extremism (on either side). They want a Congress that will compromise to solve the problems facing this country -- especially the economic and unemployment problems.