Congressional Numbers Are Pitiful (And Tax Plan Won't Help)

Donald Trump's approval numbers are bad (the worst of any modern president), but his numbers look great when compared to the approval numbers of the 115th Congress. Only 10% of the population approves of the job the Republican-controlled Congress is doing.

Those terrible numbers suggest that 2018 may well be a wave election (one in which control of Congress is flipped to the party currently out of power). And the poll numbers for 2018 show that could be true. RealClearPolitics is reporting that every poll is showing the Democrats with an advantage among voters -- and the average of all those recent polls show the Democrats with a 9.6 point advantage. The last time that big an advantage for either party was recorded was in 2010 -- when the Republicans surged to power by taking 63 new seats in the House of Representatives.

The Republicans seem to think that if they can just pass their tax plan (which gives massive tax cuts to the rich and corporations), then the voters will be happy. I think they are wrong. The bottom chart shows the net approval (approval minus disapproval) for the GOP tax plan. Note that the public has an 11 point disapproval of the plan -- and that disapproval stretches to almost all groups.

The public wants a tax cut, but they don't want the Republican version. They want the tax cuts to go to working and middle class people -- not the rich or corporations.

Both os these charts use information in a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between November 19th and 21st of a random national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,344 registered voters), with a 3.3 point margin of error.